5 ms·

I've been waiting for 0.18 in anticipation because I had heard we might get server rendering. Instead a bunch of language and syntax that I enjoyed was removed

by leshow 10y ago

I've been waiting for 0.18 in anticipation because I had heard we might get server rendering. Instead a bunch of language and syntax that I enjoyed was removed from the language, but I get better bug reports? The export button is broken unless I click "resume" which I find pretty odd. I have to say I'm really disappointed, every release they just remove language features.

ORioN63 10y ago
I was sad to see record fields not being addable anymore. It made for a good typeclass replacement, with no extra baggage.
- zalmoxes 10y ago
  That's been gone for a while.
worldsayshi 10y ago
Perhaps it's a cleanup-run before adding new stuff. Removing need for arcane syntax seems like it could simplify the compilation pipeline.
- leshow 10y ago
  The syntax was hardly 'arcane', and I doubt it was necessary to remove these features for the purpose of streamlining the compiler, that sounds a bit ridiculous. In fact you could argue that throwing an error on functions' is actually doing more work. That really is a style thing and something best left to a linter or the like. Evan hasn't mentioned anywhere that he's been removing features for the last year or so just to give us some big features later. If he has said that I would love to see it.
  - jmite 10y ago
    Removing them wasn't necessary, but it's better. Elm isn't 1.0 yet, so "does this make the language better" is the metric for feature addition or deletion.
    - leshow 10y ago
      "better" is so arbitrary that I'm afraid it's pretty much "what does Evan-san want"
      - rtfeldman 10y ago
        Every other comment about these changes has expressed approval. An overwhelming majority of Elm community members I've heard discuss this feel the same way. You are welcome to a dissenting opinion, of course, but throwing shade at Evan for his popular design decisions seems unlikely to change anyone's mind.
erokar 10y ago
What has been removed is just syntactic sugar that can easily be acheived in other ways. I think it's a good thing that Elm's core is kept as clean and simple as possible. There are enough other languages with a kitchen sink philosophy.
- leshow 10y ago
  Explain the 'other ways' I can name a function with a prime or use backticks now that the compiler won't allow it.
  - taylorfausak 10y ago
    The migration guide [1] suggests that instead of primes you can use underscores. And instead of backticks you can use pipelining. [1]: https://github.com/elm-lang/elm-platform/blob/11c8ecb81a58b82a25c90145418cd70fa61d1679/upgrade-docs/0.18.md https://github.com/elm-lang/elm-platform/blob/11c8ecb81a58b8...
    - leshow 10y ago
      My mistake, I thought you were saying I could still have the syntax features I wanted in the language. I like the range syntax, and backticks, and calling functions'. I also liked signals and having access to more stuff that is now 'magic' in the Elm compiler.
      - taylorfausak 10y ago
        It sounds like you might like PureScript [1] or GHCJS [2] more than Elm. Have you tried either of those? [1]: http://www.purescript.org/ http://www.purescript.org/ [2]: https://github.com/ghcjs/ghcjs https://github.com/ghcjs/ghcjs
        leshow 10y ago
        No, those don't really appeal to me. I think Elm had a great middle ground for a while pre-0.16 with Signals. I'm just disappointed at what I see as a lack of positive change for the language. The more stuff that becomes compiler magic the worse the language is going to get IMO.

by leshow 10y ago

ORioN63 10y ago

I was sad to see record fields not being addable anymore. It made for a good typeclass replacement, with no extra baggage.

zalmoxes 10y ago
That's been gone for a while.

worldsayshi 10y ago

Perhaps it's a cleanup-run before adding new stuff. Removing need for arcane syntax seems like it could simplify the compilation pipeline.

leshow 10y ago
The syntax was hardly 'arcane', and I doubt it was necessary to remove these features for the purpose of streamlining the compiler, that sounds a bit ridiculous. In fact you could argue that throwing an error on functions' is actually doing more work. That really is a style thing and something best left to a linter or the like. Evan hasn't mentioned anywhere that he's been removing features for the last year or so just to give us some big features later. If he has said that I would love to see it.
- jmite 10y ago
  Removing them wasn't necessary, but it's better. Elm isn't 1.0 yet, so "does this make the language better" is the metric for feature addition or deletion.
  - leshow 10y ago
    "better" is so arbitrary that I'm afraid it's pretty much "what does Evan-san want"
    - rtfeldman 10y ago
      Every other comment about these changes has expressed approval. An overwhelming majority of Elm community members I've heard discuss this feel the same way. You are welcome to a dissenting opinion, of course, but throwing shade at Evan for his popular design decisions seems unlikely to change anyone's mind.

erokar 10y ago

What has been removed is just syntactic sugar that can easily be acheived in other ways. I think it's a good thing that Elm's core is kept as clean and simple as possible. There are enough other languages with a kitchen sink philosophy.

leshow 10y ago
Explain the 'other ways' I can name a function with a prime or use backticks now that the compiler won't allow it.
- taylorfausak 10y ago
  The migration guide [1] suggests that instead of primes you can use underscores. And instead of backticks you can use pipelining. [1]: https://github.com/elm-lang/elm-platform/blob/11c8ecb81a58b82a25c90145418cd70fa61d1679/upgrade-docs/0.18.md https://github.com/elm-lang/elm-platform/blob/11c8ecb81a58b8...
  - leshow 10y ago
    My mistake, I thought you were saying I could still have the syntax features I wanted in the language. I like the range syntax, and backticks, and calling functions'. I also liked signals and having access to more stuff that is now 'magic' in the Elm compiler.
    - taylorfausak 10y ago
      It sounds like you might like PureScript [1] or GHCJS [2] more than Elm. Have you tried either of those? [1]: http://www.purescript.org/ http://www.purescript.org/ [2]: https://github.com/ghcjs/ghcjs https://github.com/ghcjs/ghcjs
      - leshow 10y ago
        No, those don't really appeal to me. I think Elm had a great middle ground for a while pre-0.16 with Signals. I'm just disappointed at what I see as a lack of positive change for the language. The more stuff that becomes compiler magic the worse the language is going to get IMO.