Live data from Hacker News

Elm Compiler Written in Elm

github.com

31–40 of 84 posts

Re: Elm Compiler Written in Elm

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give a bit context, Elm main team has been defensive against forks. They are preventing development of features they don’t think worth to them. It’s not possible to publish packages with low-level access without Elm main team approval. The compiler even has built-in DRM about that. My point is more compilers is exactly what Elm needs to flourish. C has several compilers. Python has even”jython”. That doesn’t make…

> It’s not possible to publish packages with low-level access without Elm main team approval. The compiler even has built-in DRM about that. Not calling you out or anything, but could you give a reference on that? I'm curious about what they're doing with a "DRM" in the compiler.

[deleted]

Re: Elm Compiler Written in Elm

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give a bit context, Elm main team has been defensive against forks. They are preventing development of features they don’t think worth to them. It’s not possible to publish packages with low-level access without Elm main team approval. The compiler even has built-in DRM about that. My point is more compilers is exactly what Elm needs to flourish. C has several compilers. Python has even”jython”. That doesn’t make…

> It’s not possible to publish packages with low-level access without Elm main team approval. The compiler even has built-in DRM about that. Not calling you out or anything, but could you give a reference on that? I'm curious about what they're doing with a "DRM" in the compiler.

> Not calling you out or anything, but could you give a reference on that? I'm curious about what they're doing with a "DRM" in the compiler.

Check tester89 link - it’s the description about the state of Elm right now. Author’s experience matches my personal one.

Re: Elm Compiler Written in Elm

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how the emojis have anything to do with that section, since they're all over the readme anyway. Aside from that: what they're stating is that they "don't want to and aren't planning to divide the community into multiple Elm derivatives, and will actively try to prevent that". Not dividing the community is not the same thing as threatening the main Elm team. And for a smallish language like Elm it makes se…

To give a bit context, Elm main team has been defensive against forks. They are preventing development of features they don’t think worth to them. It’s not possible to publish packages with low-level access without Elm main team approval. The compiler even has built-in DRM about that. My point is more compilers is exactly what Elm needs to flourish. C has several compilers. Python has even”jython”. That doesn’t make…

> Elm main team has been defensive against forks

What does that mean?

I know they have a strict vision of what features are better left out, and in a way I wish more langs'd be vocal about that. Go does the same and they seem to get a lot of praise for it.

Just like in Go, the Elm team only allows some features to be used by their own (std-) libraries. This, again, is a design choice.

No group was hurt enough to "fork" Elm. PureScript can be seen as a close relative that is less restrictive.

Re: Elm Compiler Written in Elm

#34
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have the urge to jump off a hill when you see heavy pragmatism, Typescript is very popular and well maintained. My experience is only positive. I was also wondering, does Blazor work with F#? That could also be an option. Not a front-end focused language but a front-end focused framework, so, there's that.

I truly believe TypeScript is the only true way forward for frontend web programming. Now what we really need is a functional dialect which compiles to TypeScript...

> Now what we really need is a functional dialect which compiles to TypeScript...

Why would it be beneficial to have TS as an intermediate representation? It turns into JS anyway, and there are already statically typed functional languages that compile to JS.

Re: Elm Compiler Written in Elm

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been writing Elm professionally for the past 2.5 years on a large project. The language is a pure joy to use, unparalleled refactoring experience. Yes it’s a small community, but there’s many jobs posted on Elm slack.

It’s quite parallel to typescript (strict) refactoring, isn’t it?

I suspect not. With Typescript even with strict typing, mutating state is still possible (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong..). This adds an extra layer of complexity to the refactoring process.

With Elm, mutation is impossible - everything goes through the update loop. There are no escape hatches. This does mean you have to jump through a number of hoops to use FFI. It can be a pain at times, but does make for much easier refactoring.

Re: Elm Compiler Written in Elm

#36
post #13
post #7

Serious question: how popular is Elm? I've recently seen some tutorials showing up and anecdotally know some friends that have played around with it, but I haven't seen any job postings for it and so I'm wondering if it's just hyped up or if there is real demand for Elm developers professionally.

There was a sizable rift after Elm’s 0.19 version. Removing synchronous FFI, especially to existing browser APIs that haven’t been rewrapped with a new API by the core team caused a lot of individuals and businesses to migrate mainly to PureScript, Reason, and/or Typescript—myself included. Couple with community hierarchy issues, lack of development/roadmap transparency, rotting merge requests to the core libraries (…

I've been a fan of mint-lang; although it's early, it's clearly intended to be like Elm: The Good Parts. Also fearing a small but helpful community that welcomes contributions, which is the polar opposite of my experience with Elm.

Re: Elm Compiler Written in Elm

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been writing Elm professionally for the past 2.5 years on a large project. The language is a pure joy to use, unparalleled refactoring experience. Yes it’s a small community, but there’s many jobs posted on Elm slack.

It’s quite parallel to typescript (strict) refactoring, isn’t it?

[deleted]

Re: Elm Compiler Written in Elm

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been writing Elm professionally for the past 2.5 years on a large project. The language is a pure joy to use, unparalleled refactoring experience. Yes it’s a small community, but there’s many jobs posted on Elm slack.

It’s quite parallel to typescript (strict) refactoring, isn’t it?

Honestly, it's nothing alike. Refactoring in Elm is different, as the compiler will tell you if you did the correct thing when refactoring. The typescript compiler can only do a fraction of that, even if you type your stuff correctly.

Needing to type stuff in elm is mostly optional too. The compiler will still check it for you anyway.

Re: Elm Compiler Written in Elm

#39
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give a bit context, Elm main team has been defensive against forks. They are preventing development of features they don’t think worth to them. It’s not possible to publish packages with low-level access without Elm main team approval. The compiler even has built-in DRM about that. My point is more compilers is exactly what Elm needs to flourish. C has several compilers. Python has even”jython”. That doesn’t make…

> Elm main team has been defensive against forks What does that mean? I know they have a strict vision of what features are better left out, and in a way I wish more langs'd be vocal about that. Go does the same and they seem to get a lot of praise for it. Just like in Go, the Elm team only allows some features to be used by their own (std-) libraries. This, again, is a design choice. No group was hurt enough to "for…

Go is open to forks and PRs though. It’s more “we’ve got a vision, but we’ll hear you out”. Elm is full cathedral, Elm comes down from the gods with no input or transparency into the decision process.

The Elm developers have a history of ostracizing people who even mention the possibility of forks from the community; tester89 posted a link with a lot of good context.

They take a very heavy handed and adversarial stance to development. I had just started getting into Elm when the news of .19 basically breaking everything and the core team just brushing off peoples cries and it soured me on the entire language.

When pre-v1 Go broke things, `go fix` was there to at least try and help.

Re: Elm Compiler Written in Elm

#40
I know you're not trying to replace the official Elm compiler, but that's precisely what is needed. I really, really wanted to like Elm but the way it's managed is horrible and antithetical to the idea of Open Source software. With the current compiler I wouldn't touch Elm with a 39.5" pole, even if Elm is a joy to work with.
Post reply on HN