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Learning Elm by porting a medium-sized web frontend from React (2019)

benhoyt.com

51–60 of 95 posts

Re: Learning Elm by porting a medium-sized web frontend from React (2019)

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is impossible if you're being responsible. You don't choose a technology that could potentially block you from solving problems in the future unless it brings a huge value to you. Elm's value proposition is mostly being a functional language with an opinionated MVU library baked in, so you can reproduce that value with a better functional language and selecting a similar MVU library in that other language, which m…

Now you're moving the goalpost. You said it was impossible to use in production. Which is clearly wrong.

I am just clarifying why I consider it impossible.

Production is not some place you're supposed to cowboy code, but instead have a reasonable expectation that you will be able to continue supporting it for as many years as it operates, and it's impossible for anyone to responsibly use technology with known limitations that have bitten other real engineering teams that they can find zero workarounds for.

If you don't consider that an impossibility for a production environment, then I certainly wouldn't want to work with you on a team with production responsibilities.

Re: Learning Elm by porting a medium-sized web frontend from React (2019)

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeez, at some point you folks who don’t like Elm’s decisions have to leave the theater so the rest of us can enjoy the show. If you think a cult of personality is bad, you aren’t appreciating how much worse is, to the rest of us, the cult of anti-cheerleaders on every post that mentions Elm. For years now any time someone wants to read about Elm, they have to hear from the same few HNers who don’t even use it yet ref…

I'm quite curious what Elm triggers so in people, that they years later actively hunts down discussions about it to interject their negativity.

I think maybe you ought to think about inverting your stance on this, because it's not necessarily virtuous to imagine that everyone repeating the same warning, over and over again, is due to some mysterious, inexplicable negativity. And it's not great to imagine that they don't know what they're talking about, or that they're just trying to scare people off with senseless FUD. Or that they didn't actually run into the problems they say they did. Or that they don't know the root cause.

Maybe a better question to be curious about is this: What can Elm do about the (self-evident in these comments, IMO) fact that a bunch of devs who really like it, feel like it's a bad choice? And, what SHOULD Elm do about that?

If a bunch of people think it's a tool foreboding enough to warn others off of it, and in the same thread some of those same people are saying they really liked that tool and wish they didn't have to do that, what benefit are you really getting from just dismissing their feedback?

Outspoken feedback is rare, just calling it negativity and paying it no mind rhymes a lot with the way Elm, writ large, has behaved. It's not indicative of a tool or ecosystem that wants to foster growth or continue development. That's part of the problem.

Re: Learning Elm by porting a medium-sized web frontend from React (2019)

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you're moving the goalpost. You said it was impossible to use in production. Which is clearly wrong.

I am just clarifying why I consider it impossible. Production is not some place you're supposed to cowboy code, but instead have a reasonable expectation that you will be able to continue supporting it for as many years as it operates, and it's impossible for anyone to responsibly use technology with known limitations that have bitten other real engineering teams that they can find zero workarounds for. If you don't…

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Re: Learning Elm by porting a medium-sized web frontend from React (2019)

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite curious what Elm triggers so in people, that they years later actively hunts down discussions about it to interject their negativity.

I think maybe you ought to think about inverting your stance on this, because it's not necessarily virtuous to imagine that everyone repeating the same warning, over and over again, is due to some mysterious, inexplicable negativity. And it's not great to imagine that they don't know what they're talking about, or that they're just trying to scare people off with senseless FUD. Or that they didn't actually run into t…

I disagree. I don't care what elm maintainers should or shouldn't do. It's not my problem, so that's not a question I want to ask.

I'm curious about why the same few, a vocal minority, spams every thread about elm with the same blog post. If you think we're dismissive, it's more because we don't want the discussion to be derailed for the umpteenth time.

Re: Learning Elm by porting a medium-sized web frontend from React (2019)

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite curious what Elm triggers so in people, that they years later actively hunts down discussions about it to interject their negativity.

I think maybe you ought to think about inverting your stance on this, because it's not necessarily virtuous to imagine that everyone repeating the same warning, over and over again, is due to some mysterious, inexplicable negativity. And it's not great to imagine that they don't know what they're talking about, or that they're just trying to scare people off with senseless FUD. Or that they didn't actually run into t…

I think it's a bit disingenuous to pretend the goal of many of these critics is to improve Elm. They are clearly through with the language--as shown in their comments--and that is fine. But they're acting like they got dumped five years ago and still aren't over it.

Re: Learning Elm by porting a medium-sized web frontend from React (2019)

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think maybe you ought to think about inverting your stance on this, because it's not necessarily virtuous to imagine that everyone repeating the same warning, over and over again, is due to some mysterious, inexplicable negativity. And it's not great to imagine that they don't know what they're talking about, or that they're just trying to scare people off with senseless FUD. Or that they didn't actually run into t…

I think it's a bit disingenuous to pretend the goal of many of these critics is to improve Elm. They are clearly through with the language--as shown in their comments--and that is fine. But they're acting like they got dumped five years ago and still aren't over it.

Why would they not be over it, then? It's clearly made an impression.

Re: Learning Elm by porting a medium-sized web frontend from React (2019)

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am just clarifying why I consider it impossible. Production is not some place you're supposed to cowboy code, but instead have a reasonable expectation that you will be able to continue supporting it for as many years as it operates, and it's impossible for anyone to responsibly use technology with known limitations that have bitten other real engineering teams that they can find zero workarounds for. If you don't…

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Re: Learning Elm by porting a medium-sized web frontend from React (2019)

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think maybe you ought to think about inverting your stance on this, because it's not necessarily virtuous to imagine that everyone repeating the same warning, over and over again, is due to some mysterious, inexplicable negativity. And it's not great to imagine that they don't know what they're talking about, or that they're just trying to scare people off with senseless FUD. Or that they didn't actually run into t…

I disagree. I don't care what elm maintainers should or shouldn't do. It's not my problem, so that's not a question I want to ask. I'm curious about why the same few, a vocal minority, spams every thread about elm with the same blog post. If you think we're dismissive, it's more because we don't want the discussion to be derailed for the umpteenth time.

People who make commercial decisions based on the support and development a language receives do indeed care. If you are making decisions with commercial or practical relevance you should care and not caring is negligence if you decide to use the product. Many people got burnt by the abandonment of Elm development (and yes, it has essentially been abandoned despite what the Elm community will say).

Re: Learning Elm by porting a medium-sized web frontend from React (2019)

#59

For anyone new to Elm, remember that as of version 0.19, unless your project is one of the Elm core team's pet projects, you'll have a severely restricted feature set available. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22821447 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17842400 , and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16510267 for details.

Jeez, at some point you folks who don’t like Elm’s decisions have to leave the theater so the rest of us can enjoy the show. If you think a cult of personality is bad, you aren’t appreciating how much worse is, to the rest of us, the cult of anti-cheerleaders on every post that mentions Elm. For years now any time someone wants to read about Elm, they have to hear from the same few HNers who don’t even use it yet ref…

This and the responses that are piling on with the same sentiment are offbase.

I am not seeking out opportunities to badmouth Elm. But as I am someone who is interested in FP and frontend tech in general, when I see an Elm story on the frontpage I click on it to see what folks are saying. And when I see exclusively glowing and positive statements (which was the case when I first posted) then I feel like I have an obligation to point out that there are some big issues with how Elm is maintained, because this is the sort of thing that _I_ would want to know before I spent a bunch of time digging into it.

If you want to watch the dang movie go ahead. But anyone asserting that those of us posting negative things about Elm are acting cult-like (seriously?) is being disingenuous. Considering the audience, there are good reasons to highlight the--IMHO major--problems with how the Elm project is run, and not mentioning them is irresponsible.

Re: Learning Elm by porting a medium-sized web frontend from React (2019)

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also had the pleasure of maintaining an Elm codebase. It was filled to the brim with state update bugs. You could never trust what you saw in your browser. Nobody in the team understood how the codebase worked. I spent days implementing some extremely simple changes, which barely worked (to the same standard as the rest of the codebase). Never again.

I don't blame a Rust-codebase for being bad just because I don't know Rust.

So, your positive anecdote was somehow valuable for the discussion, but my negative anecdote had absolutely no value? That's how anecdotes work?
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