I agree with what the author is saying, but Clojure and Clojurescript are the unpopular languages I find valuable.
Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages
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Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages
#12My 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…
Regarding the second point, As a counter-argument, it’s not certain that languages and frameworks from major vendors will continue to be supported either. For example Microsoft deprecated various UI frameworks, Firefox extensions are changing, and so on. (I’m sure there are better examples I can’t think of at the moment.)
Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages
#13My 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…
Another risk is that the language hasn't reached 1.0 yet. Incompatible changes happen.
This has been a pain point for us with a couple of the language updates. Not as bad as other pre-1.0 languages I've used in the past (like Rust), but it has been painful. The compiler is helpful enough that upgrades are mostly just tedious.
Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages
#14I'm a Java dev with just some basic experience writing functional code, mostly in Java/Kotlin/Groovy/Ceylon (all of which are primarily imperative!).
Can confirm: Elm is awesome, easy to pick up as long as you understand basic things like union types and immutability, and I found myself productive in it within a single day!
Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages
#15Elm is awesome. I just wish much more people and companies would adopt it (and ClojureScript) so it would gain popularity close to that of TypeScript. This could make the web (and the frontend job market) a better place.
Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages
#16Haskell has enormous momentum now[1], and it's speed of development is accelerating. I came to it not because it was cool, but because my experience maintaining and refactoring a big Python program had become really painful. Haskell lets me keep the codebase smaller, it's easier to be pretty sure things are working, it's easier to refactor, and I'm sure the language will only keep getting better. Those are all understatements.
[1] https://www.haskell.org/communities/05-2017/html/report.html
Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages
#17> First, Elm has the natural predictability of a pure functional language; when you write Elm, the compiler forces you to consider every case.
I'm a beginner with functional languages, but isn't the type system completely orthogonal to the fact that Elm is a functional language?
Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages
#18My 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…
Regarding the second point, As a counter-argument, it’s not certain that languages and frameworks from major vendors will continue to be supported either. For example Microsoft deprecated various UI frameworks, Firefox extensions are changing, and so on. (I’m sure there are better examples I can’t think of at the moment.)
Sure, large vendors deprecate stuff all the time. But you'll probably have plenty of notice and they'll have a path for your existing applications to follow. It may be painful, but it won't be catastrophic.
Contrast that with what would happen if No Red Ink went out of business and the author of Elm couldn't find a job that would allow him to continue to develop it. Things would be fine for months or years but eventually bitrot would set in.
Definitely not trying to spread FUD. I know some great folks that swear by Elm. It's just another risk factor (just like tech debt that might accrue should you use jQuery) to consider.
Edited to correct where the Elm author works.
Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages
#19My 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.
Re: Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages
#20> First, Elm has the natural predictability of a pure functional language; when you write Elm, the compiler forces you to consider every case. I'm a beginner with functional languages, but isn't the type system completely orthogonal to the fact that Elm is a functional language?
> > First, Elm has the natural predictability of a pure functional language; when you write Elm, the compiler forces you to consider every case.
> I'm a beginner with functional languages, but isn't the type system completely orthogonal to the fact that Elm is a functional language?
Yes. The author probably would be equally satisfied with any robust typed solution (flowtype, typescript). They also say that Elm nicely interfaces with the DOM, which I believe is mitigated by JSX.
So in some sense the article is more about JQuery/Bootstrap/other legacy solutions being bad.