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Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

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Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#91

Post by Rotareti »

seveibar wrote: post #19

My first thought: The author would probably be equally satisfied if they had used JavaScript with flowtype and react. It sounds like they're comparing JQuery + Bootstrap (and similar "old" frontend frameworks) to Elm. I think the point still stands that unpopular frameworks/languages can still be stable and more effective than popular frameworks.

I can't speak for the author, but I made the transition from JS+React to TypeScript+React to Elm and it "changed my mind" too.

When I started with React/Redux, I didn't know much about functional programming, but I developed a certain interest... A couple years later my React stack was full of tools and libraries that allowed me to write my React apps in a more functional manner. I used TypeScript for the type system, ImmutbaleJS for immutable data structures, Ramda as a FP utility library and Recompose to call React itself in a functional manner. I also used pure stateless components exclusively... Then I switched to Elm and I realized, that the React stack I was working with was a crippled version of Elm. I'm currently writing my first app in Elm and it feels much smoother.

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#92

Post by kqr »

boubiyeah wrote: post #56
s4vi0r wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The communities for languages like Elm are definitely smaller, but they're also "passion languages", if that makes sense. Nobody is learning elm because they've been or feel forced to (like you might with React, eg) or because they needed to maintain a legacy codebase at an old job or something. They're learning it because they're interested/like it, etc. So when it comes time to hire you have a small(er) pool of can…

But are language enthusiasts really better hires in general? I've known many of them who loved the theory and toying with a language but were not any better at producing actual value than the average joe.

> But are language enthusiasts really better hires in general? I've known many of them who loved the theory and toying with a language but were not any better at producing actual value than the average joe.

I think they may be safer hires, anyway. They will be able to program themselves out of a wet cardboard box, which is more than you can say about the average Joe who may just be good at bluffing the interview.

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#93

Post by desireco42 »

rtfeldman wrote: post #60
LeonidasXIV wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the reasons I'm using OCaml/Elm in my new startup Where do I apply? ;-) (To prove the point: yes, I'm one of those passion people, moving to Denmark to work in OCaml full-time, before working in Clojure full-time. Now someone give me an Idris job, heh!)

I'm not the quoted person, but we hire Elm devs (or people who want to become Elm devs - no prior Elm experience necessary; you can pick it up after joining!) all over the world. Most of our team is remote, including one from Copenhagen! http://noredink.com/jobs

Damn you Richard, you hired all the best Elm devs and cornered the market :)

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#94

Post by woolvalley »

LeonidasXIV wrote: post #54
pbiggar wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw the same at CircleCI with clojure. People want to use functional langs in real systems - we had a lot of Haskell lovers apply because "close enough". Way easier than hiring rails devs. One of the reasons I'm using OCaml/Elm in my new startup :)

> One of the reasons I'm using OCaml/Elm in my new startup Where do I apply? ;-) (To prove the point: yes, I'm one of those passion people, moving to Denmark to work in OCaml full-time, before working in Clojure full-time. Now someone give me an Idris job, heh!)

You could go do reason @ facebook messenger (I dont work at facebook):

https://reasonml.github.io/blog/2017/09/08/messenger-50-reas...

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#95

Post by learc83 »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #77
exprezi wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I used to work with Evan Czaplicki (the author of Elm) at Prezi around 2015. He was laid off with a bunch of other employees during a “reorg”. It didn’t seem to have affected Elm.

That's not a ringing endorsement of Elm's commercial viabity. Prezi hired the Elm creator and funded Elm development and then ran out of money to pay him.

What does that have to do with Elm's commercial viability? The only conclusions I can draw from that are about Prezi's commercial viability.

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#96

Post by karmakaze »

onebot wrote: post #62
rtfeldman wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth noting that in our experience, hiring has gotten way easier for us since we became an Elm shop. We really struggled to hire React engineers (who have a zillion positions to choose among - why would they pick ours?), whereas there seem to be a lot more great programmers who want to use Elm than there are companies hiring for Elm positions. Here's a verbatim quote from a cover letter (one I happened to be reading…

Don't you want people that care about your product instead of the technology behind it? I do. Because there may come a time when another technology is a better fit for your product and ultimately your customer's experiences. Then what? Now your not using elm and your team leaves or is disgruntled. I hire on passion for what we are trying to accomplish, not the technology stack.

I tried this. Bought into the company vision despite lack of experience/desire for RoR. The plan was to migrate to microservices. This happened too slowly and rarely and I ran out of enthusiasm working with a legacy monolith. The scaling problems we're interesting although they could be sidestepped other ways.

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#98

Post by antonkm »

This piqued my interest in Elm which lead me to start reading the Elm introduction[0] and it's great! I don't know if I'll ever use it in production but these well-written docs sparked the programming interest in me once again. Will definitely write some side project in Elm.

0: https://guide.elm-lang.org

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#99

Post by brightsize »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #84
fjsolwmv wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's been the story of Haskell for over 10 years. The world and other language ecosystems are changing faster than Haskell is growing. Clojure and Scala give you an alternative to Python that have the power of the Java ecosystem to take your programming out of academic and toy projects. And Python finally has static typing, 10 years after it was announced.

What changes do you think Haskell can't keep up with? If you want to approximate the cool things in Haskell with a Python-compatible* language, there's Coconut. In addition to static typing, it offers algebraic data types (how I lived without sum types, I don't know) and pattern matching. * every valid Python program is valid Coconut

"Coconut: Simple, elegant, Pythonic functional programming." http://coconut-lang.org/

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#100

Post by camelCaseOfBeer »

rtfeldman wrote: post #33
mooreds wrote: post #2

My question is, how will he feel about this three years from now? When he is trying to hire someone? Or when the folks behind Elm don't update it as often as they should? The problem with unpopular languages is twofold: * lack of talent that can step right in and be effective * lack of resources to push the language forward The first can be remediated by planning to bring new hires up to speed, and just making that i…

Worth noting that in our experience, hiring has gotten way easier for us since we became an Elm shop. We really struggled to hire React engineers (who have a zillion positions to choose among - why would they pick ours?), whereas there seem to be a lot more great programmers who want to use Elm than there are companies hiring for Elm positions. Here's a verbatim quote from a cover letter (one I happened to be reading…

"pearl may look like a cartoon character swearing..." ><
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