GHC now runs in the browser

#1

Post by kaycebasques » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 4:29 PM UTC

GHC now runs in the browser
discourse.haskell.org

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#2

Post by buggery » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 5:06 PM UTC

Interesting technical achievement but what would this be used for in practical terms?

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#3

Post by jes5199 » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 5:10 PM UTC

buggery wrote: post #2

Interesting technical achievement but what would this be used for in practical terms?

yeah why would anyone want to run code on a website

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#4

Post by swannodette » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 5:16 PM UTC

jes5199 wrote: post #3

buggery wrote: post #2

Interesting technical achievement but what would this be used for in practical terms?

yeah why would anyone want to run code on a website

Loading 50mb of WASM is a big tradeoff just to run code on a website.

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#5

Post by 0x264 » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

buggery wrote: post #2

Interesting technical achievement but what would this be used for in practical terms?

Teaching

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#6

Post by Johnny555 » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 5:24 PM UTC

For those not well versed in Haskell, GHC is apparently this:

https://www.haskell.org/ghc/

What is GHC?

GHC is a state-of-the-art, open source compiler and interactive environment for the functional language Haskell.

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#7

Post by fuzzy_biscuit » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 5:25 PM UTC

buggery wrote: post #2

Interesting technical achievement but what would this be used for in practical terms?

I think the immediate and obvious case would be educational materials. Other than that, technical achievements need not always be practical to be cool :)

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#8

Post by bqmjjx0kac » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 5:27 PM UTC

jes5199 wrote: post #3

buggery wrote: post #2

Interesting technical achievement but what would this be used for in practical terms?

yeah why would anyone want to run code on a website

It would be more plausibly practical if GHC could now target wasm, but this announcement is actually about being able to run the compiler itself in the browser.

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#9

Post by tuveson » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 5:30 PM UTC

swannodette wrote: post #4

jes5199 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah why would anyone want to run code on a website

Loading 50mb of WASM is a big tradeoff just to run code on a website.

Loading time is pretty rough, but it seems responsive enough after the initial load. Probably as fast or faster than downloading and installing GHC locally.

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#10

Post by linhns » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 5:34 PM UTC

fuzzy_biscuit wrote: post #7

buggery wrote: post #2

Interesting technical achievement but what would this be used for in practical terms?

I think the immediate and obvious case would be educational materials. Other than that, technical achievements need not always be practical to be cool :)

Agreed. Too many people said Haskell is only for academia, yet we’re seeing more quality software being released in Haskell over the past few years.