Road to Elm 1.0 • Hacker News Board

Re: Road to Elm 1.0

#31

Post by chipdale » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 1:12 PM UTC

ale wrote: post #8

OhSoHumble wrote: post #2

Oh my God, I had no idea this project was still alive. I don't mean to throw any shade but I had assumed that the lid was on this turkey.

I know right. I’m glad DSLs have fallen out of fashion. Just use the platform.

I can understand why developers might not care for DSLs, especially when they force a choice between entirely different toolsets and toolchains.

However, I feel people often miss the real value of a good DSL: it's not about the syntax, but about providing hardened semantics that can bolster or guarantee desired qualities. Elm, for instance, provides value insofar as it makes producing runtime exceptions significantly more difficult.

Personally, I hope languages like Lean, which provides exceptional support for creating DSLs within the language, renew interest in semantically sound DSLs, especially if we insist on using LLMs.

Re: Road to Elm 1.0

#32

Post by Munksgaard » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 1:13 PM UTC

willdr wrote: post #28

Did they walk back that thing where certain language features could only be used by the Elm team? That seemed like a language-killer to me.

Nope.

Re: Road to Elm 1.0

#33

Post by akst » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 1:15 PM UTC

podnami wrote: post #3

What is the point of actively choosing a web framework in the age of LLMs?

Sorry buddy this is hacker news, you probably meant to enter your prompt here --> claude.ai

Re: Road to Elm 1.0

#34

Post by kccqzy » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 1:17 PM UTC

asgr wrote: post #23

hobofan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The project was dead. The previous release was 7 years ago, where it stopped because the creator (same as author of this announcement) stopped maintaining it and since the community hasn't progress beyond a BDFL-model that's where it died. So it was dead, it just now has been resurrected (and AFAIK with a whithered community in the meantime).

your definition of dead is elms definition of stability, I think :D haha javascriptland really warps peoples minds on stability and project-liveness

You are not entirely wrong, but there’s still a difference between being dead and very stable. Among the languages that compile to JS, I would look at ClojureScript as the prime example of stability rather than Elm. I mean Elm has removed features breaking compat; ClojureScript doesn’t do that.

Re: Road to Elm 1.0

#35

Post by hobofan » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 1:17 PM UTC

asgr wrote: post #23

hobofan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The project was dead. The previous release was 7 years ago, where it stopped because the creator (same as author of this announcement) stopped maintaining it and since the community hasn't progress beyond a BDFL-model that's where it died. So it was dead, it just now has been resurrected (and AFAIK with a whithered community in the meantime).

your definition of dead is elms definition of stability, I think :D haha javascriptland really warps peoples minds on stability and project-liveness

I've head the displeasure of working with more than one Elm zealot in the past, and also allowed a service to make it into production (which was a huge disaster). Due to that, I know a lot more about Elm than I'd like to.

I think the "Elm is stable not dead" seen from the few people that stuck around with Elm is largely cope for being stuck with an unmaintained language. Languages, like all other pieces of software need maintenance or they degrade in the world moving around it (e.g. there is/was no official aarch64 build of Elm in the period of non-maintenance).

I also would say that Elm is still largely unfit for most realistic production scenarios, unless you have the manpower to build everything from scratch, as interoperability with the outside web world (JS/TS) is an afterthough, and by some parts of the community not desired.

Re: Road to Elm 1.0

#36

Post by pseudocomposer » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 1:22 PM UTC

OhSoHumble wrote: post #2

Oh my God, I had no idea this project was still alive. I don't mean to throw any shade but I had assumed that the lid was on this turkey.

I’ve been using Elm professionally at a very profitable, lean company the last two years. (Didn’t know it coming in, but had enough React, Redux, and other experience to learn quickly.) The Elm community would call this a feature. How much React code you wrote 6-8 years ago will work perfectly and identically with today’s React toolchain?

It’s a whole different set of values. Good React code in 2026 looks like any compiling Elm code since 2016.

Re: Road to Elm 1.0

#37

Post by katemaster009 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 1:22 PM UTC

auslegung wrote: post #19

About two years ago I was experimenting with ChatGPT vibecoding a snake game in the browser in elm, because elm is my favorite language. It was rough going and I concluded at the time that LLM‘s might kill elm. Today I use elm in production and LLMs are vastly better at it, and if anything I think LLM‘s might increase elm adoption because it is the ideal language for an LLM right now. It’s a simpler language than mos…

Fair point. I hadn't thought about it that way, but I would still hesitate if the ecosystem isn't moving forward.

Re: Road to Elm 1.0

#38

Post by hobofan » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 1:23 PM UTC

kccqzy wrote: post #34

asgr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your definition of dead is elms definition of stability, I think :D haha javascriptland really warps peoples minds on stability and project-liveness

You are not entirely wrong, but there’s still a difference between being dead and very stable. Among the languages that compile to JS, I would look at ClojureScript as the prime example of stability rather than Elm. I mean Elm has removed features breaking compat; ClojureScript doesn’t do that.

> I mean Elm has removed features breaking compat

To be fair, Elm hasn't made it to 1.0 (yet). That's where languages should make breaking changes before being stuck with the flaws forever.

Re: Road to Elm 1.0

#39

Post by imbnwa » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 1:26 PM UTC

So many casualties in that period of groping around in functional programming concepts for the frontend from, like, 2014 - 2020 or so. But a lot of good things endured from that at least.

Re: Road to Elm 1.0

#40

Post by OhSoHumble » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 1:26 PM UTC

pseudocomposer wrote: post #36

OhSoHumble wrote: post #2

Oh my God, I had no idea this project was still alive. I don't mean to throw any shade but I had assumed that the lid was on this turkey.

I’ve been using Elm professionally at a very profitable, lean company the last two years. (Didn’t know it coming in, but had enough React, Redux, and other experience to learn quickly.) The Elm community would call this a feature. How much React code you wrote 6-8 years ago will work perfectly and identically with today’s React toolchain? It’s a whole different set of values. Good React code in 2026 looks like any co…

Oh yeah, no shade against the language itself. I had fun learning it and using it for some toy development years ago - and the TEA still exists in multiple library implementations. Just wild to see the creator of the language emerge from the fog like that.