Welcome! This lesson and the following ones have the main purpose of introducing and teaching you a powerful Haskell program development tool: the HOpenGL. Recently, it is being managed by Sven Panne, so some reference can be found in his HOpenGL site. Do not hesitate in making his site your first stop before trying to learn anything.

HOpenGL stands for Haskell Open Graphics Library. Actually, it must not be treated as a library, but as a binding tool. In this case, HOpenGL binds the Haskell programming language to the OpenGL library and its tools: GLUT, GLU and GL. In other words, you must have OpenGL installed in order to use HOpenGL (this is not a main concern, since most Windows versions, for example, already have OpenGL installed - check out more installation details in the next lesson, How to Install).

One of the most interesting OpenGL (and HOpenGL, consequently) applications concerns about the use of 3D environments with a nice hardware performance. The auxiliary tools (GLUT, GLU and GL) allow, among other things, windows management and the creation of keyboard, mouse and other peripheral routines. Hence, if you wish to create graphic animations or develop games, you have a high chance in succeeding with (H)OpenGL.

The following tutorials, besides the installation one, were not developed in a independent way (generally the knowledge acquired in a tutorial will be needed in the following ones). Hence, it is strongly recommended that you read them in order if you have never had a previous contact with HOpenGL. If you have any doubt, suggestion or correction (including any misspells), do not hesitate to send me an email. I hope these tutorials are useful to you in some way. Good luck.