Comment by jitter_ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jitter_ | Hacker News Reader

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Having followed the language for quite a while, including some of the controversies, I think there's two things you need to be mindful of:

1. The language version starts with 0, i.e. it is being clearly communicated that there is no guarantee of stability

2. The language development is being run by an opinionated BDFL who likes to take his time to think through new features. There's more of novel, well-thought-out ways of doing things, but less support for "I need this for my production use case now"

Neither of those points is inherently bad, but if you plan to adopt Elm in your product or codebase be prepared to rely only on the feature set you get from current version. Expect breaking changes in the future when new version drops.

There's lot to like about the language and it can be a good introduction to functional programming if you are not yet familiar. IMO it is definitely worth spending time on to improve your skillset and to gain new perspectives on programming.

I don't want to claim I am an expert on different programming languages. I really wanted to supplant my JS use-cases with Elm, but the ecosystem is too closed for proper collaboration.

The biggest restriction on adoption is that the language is a gatekeeped brainchild of limited number of devs. They are inclined to build the language around use cases they want, instead of what people who use their language want.

They have effectively closed the gate to having other talented FOSS devs supercharge this language with features that allow it to run circles around other languages currently in production systems (mainly JS)

It's their right to do so if they wish, but it means that I can't consider this language in any serious capacity. It means the language lacks flexibility and reactivity to changing circumstances, and while it describes having a default library without extendible ecosystems as a "feature, not a bug", they've essentially put a ceiling on what is practical with their language in doing so.

I really wanted to like this language, but the more I learned about it, the more I felt disappointed over what could have been.

> if you plan to adopt Elm in your product or codebase be prepared to rely only on the feature set you get from current version. Expect breaking changes in the future when new version drops.

Conversely, though, the language owners also don't get to have it both ways: if they aren't interested in committing to stability and (some measure of) implementing these production use cases, then they should not act, or promote it, as if it is a production-ready project.

That’s quite a strong indictment of most of the JavaScript community/ecosystem.

? I didn't say anything about JavaScript.

I tried to use wit. Evidently I failed.

I see, sorry I missed it.

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