Elm is Wrong

#1

Post by HappyAndHarmles » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 4:49 AM UTC

Elm is Wrong
reasonablypolymorphic.com

Re: Elm is Wrong

#2

Post by sitkack » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 5:37 AM UTC

  >I have complaints about Elm after using it during a quick hack session.

Re: Elm is Wrong

#3

Post by jedimastert » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 5:39 AM UTC

This might seem like a silly question, but what would happen if you tried to use the same kind of system, but with another language?

Re: Elm is Wrong

#4

Post by trobertson » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 5:42 AM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #2

>I have complaints about Elm after using it during a quick hack session.

> the language is an unsurmountable pile of poorly-thought-out and impossible-to-compose new ideas on top of the least interesting pieces of Haskell

For a Haskell programmer, what he tried to do (use typeclasses) is extremely common. It's some of the most basic stuff you can do. Elm is clearly modeled after Haskell, and absolutely fails to maintain the basic patterns that Haskell users take for granted.

Re: Elm is Wrong

#5

Post by nilkn » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 5:43 AM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #2

>I have complaints about Elm after using it during a quick hack session.

I disagree strongly with the tone and language of this article, but I think it actually contains an interesting and nontrivial analysis and shouldn't be outright dismissed (though its title probably should be).

Re: Elm is Wrong

#6

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 5:51 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Elm is Wrong

#7

Post by the_duke » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 5:53 AM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #2

>I have complaints about Elm after using it during a quick hack session.

The post is opinionated and a bit aggresively worded.

But his(/her?) major complaint is valid: lack of type classes, which completely kills essential composability and generic properties of Haskell. And the module system doesn't offer MLs features to make up for it (signatures).

This means that Elm requires boilerplate for things that are elegantly handled by type classes.

You may also look at Purescript [1], a more complete Haskell inspired language compiling to Javascript.

Haskell is a complex language. So I'm not necessarily saying that Purescript is a good choice for the average developer unfamiliar with functional languages.

Elms 'lack of features' makes it easy to pick up. Especially if you aren't familiar with FP. But Elm is TOO simple.

[1] http://www.purescript.org/

Re: Elm is Wrong

#8

Post by plaguuuuuu » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 5:56 AM UTC

My reaction to this is mainly that typeclasses seems annoying to use in the first place, and that the alternative seems, if anything, even more annoying.

Re: Elm is Wrong

#9

Post by desireco42 » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 5:57 AM UTC

I didn't do any larger projects, so far my time with Elm was enjoyable, language and tooling is very good and interesting.

I don't like the tone of this article, otherwise critique seems to warrant more discussion. Elm as a language is in development and community is very vibrant and open... as long as you don't mention rules for formatting, one in particular ;). So, I really wouldn't discount Elm so quickly.

On the other hand, PureScript and Reason also look very interesting and I am looking forward to get more familiar with them. I think we live in fantastic times.

Re: Elm is Wrong

#10

Post by caconym_ » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 6:01 AM UTC

It really seems like Elm should implement typeclasses. I don't know Elm, but I can't really imagine writing serious Haskell programs without them, and I've seen multiple Elm-related complaints today that were either directly lamenting their absence or lamenting difficulties that they would have solved, trivially.