Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ReScript (previously BuckleScript and Reason)

rescript-lang.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–15 of 15 posts

Re: ReScript (previously BuckleScript and Reason)

#11

Post by orra »

ccapndave wrote: post #10
orra wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm even more confused. It's like all of BuckleScript and parts of ReasonML is now ReScript. Except BuckleScript has a new C-like syntax unlike the ML syntax that made BuckleScript BuckleScript as opposed to ReasonML.

Basically Bucklescript have forked their own (very similar) syntax from ReasonML and branded the whole syntax + Bucklescript + compiler package as ReScript. I suppose the goal is to eliminate the confusion of having so many moving parts and unify them all under a single ReScript brand.

Thanks. I guess the thing I didn't understand was where this leaves Reason: what is left under the Reason banner? But a fork would explain the overlap.

Re: ReScript (previously BuckleScript and Reason)

#12

Post by ccapndave »

orra wrote: post #11
ccapndave wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically Bucklescript have forked their own (very similar) syntax from ReasonML and branded the whole syntax + Bucklescript + compiler package as ReScript. I suppose the goal is to eliminate the confusion of having so many moving parts and unify them all under a single ReScript brand.

Thanks. I guess the thing I didn't understand was where this leaves Reason: what is left under the Reason banner? But a fork would explain the overlap.

Reason is still an alternative syntax to OCaml for native development, although I have no idea how many people actually use it for that.

Re: ReScript (previously BuckleScript and Reason)

#13

Post by yawaramin »

orra wrote: post #11
ccapndave wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically Bucklescript have forked their own (very similar) syntax from ReasonML and branded the whole syntax + Bucklescript + compiler package as ReScript. I suppose the goal is to eliminate the confusion of having so many moving parts and unify them all under a single ReScript brand.

Thanks. I guess the thing I didn't understand was where this leaves Reason: what is left under the Reason banner? But a fork would explain the overlap.

Lots of things are under the Reason banner:

- The Reason syntax at https://github.com/facebook/reason

- Esy, the npm-like Opam-compatible package manager at https://esy.sh/

- Reason native tooling in https://reason-native.com/

- Not forgetting that Dune and Odoc, two standard tools in the OCaml ecosystem, both support Reason syntax.

EDIT: and I forgot about the various editor plugins which provide Reason support, the most well-known is probably https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=jaredly....

Re: ReScript (previously BuckleScript and Reason)

#14

Post by smabie »

I get that people don't like learning new and unfamiliar things, but OCaml's syntax is actually pretty nice, and the editor tooling is a lot better. ReasonML has some nice ideas like more sensible parsing of types and automatic variant to function conversions, but even so I don't think the syntax fragmentation is worth it.

I started a native ReasonML project but eventually converted the project to OCaml as I became disillusioned with the relative verbosity and noise compared to straight up OCaml.

Don't be afraid to learn something new, especially if it looks weird or inscrutable. Things are rarely weird for the sake of weirdness, and you'll expand your horizons and perspectives, eventually understanding (and maybe even liking) why things are the way they are.

This applies to functional programming, Lisp, array languages, etc. The intellectual laziness of programmers never fails to astound me. Excuses for why only the things they currently know are somehow the best. Comments like "X is the best because I don't know anything else" are so common it's sad, even among senior software engineers.

Post reply on HN