Outsourcing the Graphical Input/Output using Streams and Haskell

This paper presents a generalized system for graphical IO that views the graphical environment as a separate IO device, for Haskell and other functional languages. Haskell uses monads in its IO system but these are considered difficult and stimulate an imperative way of thinking. This paper shows why an implementation of the so-called stream model provides a solution to these problems. We demonstrate the feasibility of the generalized system and how it can be used to achieve platform-independent graphical IO, by presenting a prototype system that uses the generalized system, and the graphical capabilities of a browser as the graphical IO device. By viewing the browser as a more complex IO device, it is also possible to use it’s keyboard and mouse information-capturing features and communicate them to the program along the same IO connection as the graphical IO.