Ask HN: Which functional language has the best ecosystem for a web backend?

#1

Post by xstartup » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 10:10 AM UTC

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: Which functional language has the best ecosystem for a web backend?

#2

Post by sioa » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 10:18 AM UTC

JavaScript.

If you want purely functional, both haskell and clojure do have a good backend community and quite a few good tools.

Re: Ask HN: Which functional language has the best ecosystem for a web backend?

#3

Post by TomMarius » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 10:41 AM UTC

sioa wrote: post #2

JavaScript. If you want purely functional, both haskell and clojure do have a good backend community and quite a few good tools.

I'd rather recommend TypeScript

Re: Ask HN: Which functional language has the best ecosystem for a web backend?

#4

Post by sioa » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 11:01 AM UTC

TomMarius wrote: post #3

sioa wrote: post #2

JavaScript. If you want purely functional, both haskell and clojure do have a good backend community and quite a few good tools.

I'd rather recommend TypeScript

Ah yeah ofcourse. TypeScript, always.

Re: Ask HN: Which functional language has the best ecosystem for a web backend?

#5

Post by sidhuko » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 11:27 AM UTC

TomMarius wrote: post #3

sioa wrote: post #2

JavaScript. If you want purely functional, both haskell and clojure do have a good backend community and quite a few good tools.

I'd rather recommend TypeScript

Have they sorted the differences with async/await? I'd be using if it wasn't from the different implementation meaning you need to use typescript to babel.

Re: Ask HN: Which functional language has the best ecosystem for a web backend?

#6

Post by anthonyskipper » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 11:31 AM UTC

Today I would say Java/Scala mostly because of jvm access to huge numbers of libraries. But also because of things like Akka.

There may be other options depending on whether you consider JavaScript or Go to be a functional language.

Re: Ask HN: Which functional language has the best ecosystem for a web backend?

#7

Post by bennyp101 » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 11:36 AM UTC

Elixir is a good bet

Re: Ask HN: Which functional language has the best ecosystem for a web backend?

#8

Post by joaomdmoura » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 11:42 AM UTC

I have been using Elixir for the past more than 2 years and got say that it has an awesome ecosystem for overall web development, I've been using and writing open source libraries and they are looking pretty solid as well. The company I work for also uses it as its main backend for the past almost 3 years and it has been working nicely since then. Hiring also got way easier, not only because of the existing developers using it already but also because the interest on it has increased.

Re: Ask HN: Which functional language has the best ecosystem for a web backend?

#9

Post by dtech » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 11:43 AM UTC

anthonyskipper wrote: post #6

Today I would say Java/Scala mostly because of jvm access to huge numbers of libraries. But also because of things like Akka. There may be other options depending on whether you consider JavaScript or Go to be a functional language.

Scala has a number of good HTTP frameworks, Play, spray/akka-http and Lift come to mind.

Spring boot (Java) is also very decent, and Play and akka-http have both first-class Java and Scala API's.

Kotlin has the same JVM advantage.

Re: Ask HN: Which functional language has the best ecosystem for a web backend?

#10

Post by dtech » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 11:45 AM UTC

Define "ecosystem for webbackend". If all you want to do is put up a decent HTTP/REST-ish API all large languages have multiple good options.