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Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

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Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#211

Post by pmarreck »

woolvalley wrote: post #90
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…

Because you get all of the problems that you get mentioned in the article. And on top of that javascript land is fad heavy, and whats cool today might not be cool 2 years from now. I personally know of a story where a startup started with datomic and clojure, and it was a bad idea because datomic could not effectively delete things. Eventually they went the standard java and standard cassandra / postgres / redis type…

Datomic is an immutable database, so if you need ephemeral (deleteable) data you could just set up another non-Datomic store.

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#212

Post by anonytrary »

callumlocke wrote: post #136
TremendousJudge wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the points he raised, and I see the value now. However, the author also talks about the dangers that come from using lesser-known, using unstable languages (he mentions finding bugs in the compiler, segfaults, and so on), and he doesn't say how Elm solves them

The author does emphasise how complete and well-built the official Elm tools are, which kind of mitigates this concern. But I agree, the article doesn’t really spell out its reasoning.

> does emphasise how complete and well-built the official Elm tools are

It's not a good point. It's just unrealistic to rely on standard libraries, even if you're writing Scala or Python. Community size must be an important factor, even for Elm. It is highly unlikely that Elm is so perfect, that community size simply becomes irrelevant.

I think we can all agree that this article isn't finished at all.

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#213

Post by yawaramin »

sidlls wrote: post #194
yawaramin wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Python 3 supports type annotations natively, and the mypy tool is an external typechecker that you can run just like any other static analysis tool during your build.

That isn't static typing.

- You can specify types

- Types are checked before run time

- Type errors are reported

If that's not static typing, what is?

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#214

Post by not_kurt_godel »

quaunaut wrote: post #187
not_kurt_godel wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> say you used it at work Please don't do this. If you're not found out in the interview, you'll be found out on the job eventually due to your obvious lack of experience. Some of my most personally loathed coworkers have been people who have bullshitted their way into positions by claiming skills they don't have or aren't qualified in, making them a nightmare to work with.

Is there some way in which side project experience is different than professional experience no one has ever informed me of?

The aspects in which they differ are numerous and substantial. If a candidate expressed the sentiment that they are the same in an interview, I would not take them seriously since it would indicate that they are either ignorant or naive, and either apathetic about work, or likely to favor personal coding pursuits over the job they're applying for.

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#215

Post by grzm »

pmarreck wrote: post #211
woolvalley wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you get all of the problems that you get mentioned in the article. And on top of that javascript land is fad heavy, and whats cool today might not be cool 2 years from now. I personally know of a story where a startup started with datomic and clojure, and it was a bad idea because datomic could not effectively delete things. Eventually they went the standard java and standard cassandra / postgres / redis type…

Datomic is an immutable database, so if you need ephemeral (deleteable) data you could just set up another non-Datomic store.

You're correct that Datomic considers immutability a feature. That said, Datomic on-prem supports excision which completely removes data for exceptional cases. I suspect Datomic Cloud will sometime in the future.

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#216

Post by Retra »

isostatic wrote: post #79

I used to use Elm, then I moved to Pine, then Mutt (which is still going strong) I guess there's only so many names in the world, and they're bound to be reused.

This is why I'll never be a web developer. "Let's drop names! I made bridges out of Wood.io, then I used Steel (TM), now I use Stone.js. What's fun, now there's data in the kiddie pool!"

It feels like watching a cult of optimization function in a culture where measurement is taboo. It's absurd beyond belief.

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#217

Post by rtfeldman »

brokenbyclouds wrote: post #197
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…

Worth noting is that you haven't been able to find a single criticism of elm in years. You hired the language designer so it's understandable that you'd have an easier time with the language. However, you've consistently kicked dust in everyone's eyes every time anyone has anything remotely critical to say about elm. It's frustrating because you are so smart and so insightful and it just looks like you're deliberatel…

Elm doesn't support code splitting or `insertRule` styling, both of which are important for performance. `elm-package` is currently piggybacking GitHub's infrastructure instead of having its own hosting. I think Elm should have more patch releases. I don't think `comparable`, `number`, or especially `appendable` should be in the language, and hope they get removed someday. I don't think `==` should be `a -> a -> Bool`. If I were in charge, ports would work with `Value` directly instead of doing automatic conversions at the edges.

Also, your comment was needlessly harsh. If you wanted to know what I consider Elm's flaws, you could have tried just asking.

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#218

Post by woolvalley »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #188
woolvalley wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only used swift at that size, but I've heard stories with all of those languages once you have a large code base. I remember vaguely reading about how at a haskell conference people were basically cornering compiler maintainers about compile speed, but that was several years ago.

When I have to recompile, it's usually because I've only modified a few files, and it's usually really fast. I particularly enjoy that if I refactor things without actually making any changes in the way it works, GHC won't blink; it knows there's nothing to do. My codebase is only a few thousand lines, though.

Yeah the codebases I'm talking about are something around 1 million lines over several apps, libraries, all of the tests and codegened models, mocks and network services.

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#219

Post by pmarreck »

brokenbyclouds wrote: post #197
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…

Worth noting is that you haven't been able to find a single criticism of elm in years. You hired the language designer so it's understandable that you'd have an easier time with the language. However, you've consistently kicked dust in everyone's eyes every time anyone has anything remotely critical to say about elm. It's frustrating because you are so smart and so insightful and it just looks like you're deliberatel…

Perhaps I missed something: is Elm unable to be forked or something?

Evidence to support your assertions that it’s “stagnant” and “average”?

Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages

#220

Post by leshow »

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…

You really ought to disclose that you also hired the language's BDFL when you make comments like these.

With that said, I sort of agree with the sibling comment here. Most other people involved with a language that I've seen are still able to make objective criticisms about it.

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