challenge for programmers using Haskell and Cabal

[Norbert Raimund Leisner]

Hello ,

the author of BishBosh https://github.com/functionalley/BishBosh wrote:

I hardly ever use Windows, but I've just built it on Windows-10 & uploaded the required changes in version bishbosh-0.0.0.2.
If you build the application yourself, then I don't need to be concerned with platforms-specifics.

First you'll need a Haskell compiler & basic libraries; that's easy & free.
Go to https://www.haskell.org/platform/windows.html to download the "Haskell Platform"; ideally the 64-bit version.

Then you need "bishbosh" & all its dependencies, but rather than installing all the dependencies manually,
it's better to use a tool called "cabal" from the Haskell platform you just installed, because cabal understands the network of dependencies.

Open Command Prompt:
cabal update
Downloading the latest package list from hackage.haskell.org
cabal install -f-unix -f-hxtrelaxng bishbosh-0.0.0.2
Resolving dependencies...
...

You'll also need https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/ for the GUI, since thought bisbosh can render a board in an xterm, I doubt that'll work in Windows.

The documentation for bishbosh is in man format which is hard to read on Windows, but is also available on https://functionalley.eu/Man/man.html.
The basic invocation is xboard -fcp 'bishbosh -i config/CECP/bishbosh_black.xml'; you'll need to adjust the path to the config-file to where Windows put it.
The xml config-file references a PGN database of standard-openings, which may need some tweaks for Windows also.

I haven't made an executable available for any OS; bishbosh is merely the source-code, written in a portable language Haskell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_% ... anguage%29.

It is typically installed on an arbitrary OS using a tool called cabal, which downloads the package from https://hackage.haskell.org/ & builds it. The package then contains an executable & required ancillary files.

The cabal package compiles & works on GNU/Linux.
I know it compiles on MS-Windows, but am pretty sure it needs debugging, & given my limited enthusiasm for MS-Windows, it's probably not going to be me.

The project was largely about me exploring chess-programming using a pure functional language, rather than an attempt to compete with the best programs already available.

Any ideas? A Windows compile (exe-file) for download would be great.

Best wishes,
Norbert