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Congratulations on the release! I have a couple questions for you (and any other contributors!) about the project, but I don't know how to phrase them without c

by dmit 6y ago

Congratulations on the release! I have a couple questions for you (and any other contributors!) about the project, but I don't know how to phrase them without coming off as combative. Please accept the following as genuine curiosity rather than malice. 1) You called the 0.8 release "huge" in the release notes, even though it adds 11 new functions, removes 2, and updates 2 compared to 0.7, released a year prior. Is there something else about 0.8 that makes it larger than the sum of the API changes? 2) BuckleScript has seemingly been a one-man show for ~3 years. It is lagging noticeably behind the progress of the main OCaml project (including jsoo). ReasonML has a couple prominent contributors, but the overall (public) activity is dwarfed by Hongbo Zhang's work on BS. Is this because the ReasonML project is considered to be in a stable state, sufficient for production work?

yawaramin 6y ago
1) You can see a complete list of changes here https://github.com/reasonml/reason-react/blob/a70d9e6b51ed0ab27a895fa13807436d20db5620/HISTORY.md#080-042020 https://github.com/reasonml/reason-react/blob/a70d9e6b51ed0a... . We consider it a huge release partly because it adds some long-awaited bindings, partly because of the documentation improvements, and partly because of how community-driven the release was. 2) BuckleScript's creator works for Facebook and has both a specific focus and a long-term vision for the project, more details here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWEQjvGGiTA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWEQjvGGiTA . He also regularly blogs about ongoing improvements: https://reasonml.org/blog https://reasonml.org/blog . Facebook Web Messenger and other products are heavily reliant on BuckleScript. I would consider that to be production-ready.
- dmit 6y ago
  To clarify, the link in 1) is where I took the number of changes from. And Re: 2) I have no doubt that Mr. Zhang knows what he's doing. I was just noting how even after the prodigious amount of work he has put into BS over the years, it is still falling behind JSOO which has the benefit of being more tightly bound to the parent OCaml project. I know about the different tradeoffs JSOO and BS have made. All I meant to say is that one super-productive person is apparently (and understandably) not able to keep up with upstream (i.e. Inria + Jane Street + many others) in this case. And then we have the ReasonML project that has seen even less activity recently. If ReasonML in its current state is considered a finished product that requires minimal maintenance, I couldn't think of a better endorsement, to be honest.
  - jordwalke 6y ago
    ReasonML is an umbrella project/sponsor for many subprojects, all of which have the goal of bringing fully type safe, fast compiling, fast executing code to the widest number of developers and today that means JavaScript developers. Many ReasonML projects support or improve upstream OCaml ecosystem. For example, package management workflows (https://esy.sh https://esy.sh), interactive repls that work with Reason syntax, and OCaml syntax (see https://sketch.sh https://sketch.sh), and many community members contribute to the developer tools (next generation language server created by OCamlLabs). Others are building CI infrastructure, and many other projects. Reason Syntax was the first entry into the ecosystem. It's not done evolving/improving, and it's just the tip of the iceberg for all the projects under the umbrella. BuckleScript has been developed with Reason users in mind. Syntax is one of the most important things when introducing a language, and one of the biggest tripping points for new people trying out OCaml so it makes sense that it would be the first entry. But it's not the last, it's not the only, and it's not finished evolving/improving.
    - dmit 6y ago
      Thank you for taking the time to reply, Jordan, but none of what you posted is relevant to my concerns from the above two comments.
      - jordwalke 6y ago
        I believe it does address part of your comments. At the very least: "And then we have the ReasonML project that has seen even less activity recently" You comment seemed to be based on the assumption that the Reason syntax is the sum total of the Reason project, and I provided examples that would adjust that frame of reference. See the high level goal I mentioned - bring fast development, fast running, fully type safe programming to the largest audience possible. Syntax is one important piece, but not everything, and it's not everything under the ReasonML project umbrella.
        dmit 6y ago
        Ah, you're right. I did judge the Reason project by the number of commits its main repo has seen in the past year. But surely you'll agree that "fast development, fast running, fully type safe programming" has been achieved years ago, and any incremental improvements coming from the BS project are just that - incremental.
rickyvetter 6y ago
I'm not OP but I work on ReasonReact. I think these are excellent questions - thanks for asking despite your worries about tone. 1. I would not classify this release as huge by most definitions, but I do think it is by a couple. First - it has many more contributors (both in code and on issues) than the 0.7 release and that means better reflection of community desires and direction. Second - it is the first release that forces 7.x BuckleScript which sets up ReasonReact for optimizations that would be impossible otherwise. Better support for `lazy`, `context`, and more. 2. BuckleScript is a true fork of OCaml and that comes with tradeoffs. On the plus you get JS interop you cannot achieve with JSOO (records and modules compiling to objects, https://bucklescript.github.io/blog/2020/03/26/generalize-uncurry https://bucklescript.github.io/blog/2020/03/26/generalize-un...). On the downside, active effort must be made and prioritized to upstream and maintain course with OCaml proper. 2a. Reason is being used in production at Facebook today, but Facebook also employs many of the people working on it. I personally consider it to be in a stable state for production use, but same as any technology I think it would be foolish to adopt Reason without better understanding the reason it exists, the problems it's trying to solve, and the drawbacks it has.

by dmit 6y ago

yawaramin 6y ago

1) You can see a complete list of changes here https://github.com/reasonml/reason-react/blob/a70d9e6b51ed0ab27a895fa13807436d20db5620/HISTORY.md#080-042020 https://github.com/reasonml/reason-react/blob/a70d9e6b51ed0a... . We consider it a huge release partly because it adds some long-awaited bindings, partly because of the documentation improvements, and partly because of how community-driven the release was. 2) BuckleScript's creator works for Facebook and has both a specific focus and a long-term vision for the project, more details here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWEQjvGGiTA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWEQjvGGiTA . He also regularly blogs about ongoing improvements: https://reasonml.org/blog https://reasonml.org/blog . Facebook Web Messenger and other products are heavily reliant on BuckleScript. I would consider that to be production-ready.

dmit 6y ago
To clarify, the link in 1) is where I took the number of changes from. And Re: 2) I have no doubt that Mr. Zhang knows what he's doing. I was just noting how even after the prodigious amount of work he has put into BS over the years, it is still falling behind JSOO which has the benefit of being more tightly bound to the parent OCaml project. I know about the different tradeoffs JSOO and BS have made. All I meant to say is that one super-productive person is apparently (and understandably) not able to keep up with upstream (i.e. Inria + Jane Street + many others) in this case. And then we have the ReasonML project that has seen even less activity recently. If ReasonML in its current state is considered a finished product that requires minimal maintenance, I couldn't think of a better endorsement, to be honest.
- jordwalke 6y ago
  ReasonML is an umbrella project/sponsor for many subprojects, all of which have the goal of bringing fully type safe, fast compiling, fast executing code to the widest number of developers and today that means JavaScript developers. Many ReasonML projects support or improve upstream OCaml ecosystem. For example, package management workflows (https://esy.sh https://esy.sh), interactive repls that work with Reason syntax, and OCaml syntax (see https://sketch.sh https://sketch.sh), and many community members contribute to the developer tools (next generation language server created by OCamlLabs). Others are building CI infrastructure, and many other projects. Reason Syntax was the first entry into the ecosystem. It's not done evolving/improving, and it's just the tip of the iceberg for all the projects under the umbrella. BuckleScript has been developed with Reason users in mind. Syntax is one of the most important things when introducing a language, and one of the biggest tripping points for new people trying out OCaml so it makes sense that it would be the first entry. But it's not the last, it's not the only, and it's not finished evolving/improving.
  - dmit 6y ago
    Thank you for taking the time to reply, Jordan, but none of what you posted is relevant to my concerns from the above two comments.
    - jordwalke 6y ago
      I believe it does address part of your comments. At the very least: "And then we have the ReasonML project that has seen even less activity recently" You comment seemed to be based on the assumption that the Reason syntax is the sum total of the Reason project, and I provided examples that would adjust that frame of reference. See the high level goal I mentioned - bring fast development, fast running, fully type safe programming to the largest audience possible. Syntax is one important piece, but not everything, and it's not everything under the ReasonML project umbrella.
      - dmit 6y ago
        Ah, you're right. I did judge the Reason project by the number of commits its main repo has seen in the past year. But surely you'll agree that "fast development, fast running, fully type safe programming" has been achieved years ago, and any incremental improvements coming from the BS project are just that - incremental.

rickyvetter 6y ago

I'm not OP but I work on ReasonReact. I think these are excellent questions - thanks for asking despite your worries about tone. 1. I would not classify this release as huge by most definitions, but I do think it is by a couple. First - it has many more contributors (both in code and on issues) than the 0.7 release and that means better reflection of community desires and direction. Second - it is the first release that forces 7.x BuckleScript which sets up ReasonReact for optimizations that would be impossible otherwise. Better support for `lazy`, `context`, and more. 2. BuckleScript is a true fork of OCaml and that comes with tradeoffs. On the plus you get JS interop you cannot achieve with JSOO (records and modules compiling to objects, https://bucklescript.github.io/blog/2020/03/26/generalize-uncurry https://bucklescript.github.io/blog/2020/03/26/generalize-un...). On the downside, active effort must be made and prioritized to upstream and maintain course with OCaml proper. 2a. Reason is being used in production at Facebook today, but Facebook also employs many of the people working on it. I personally consider it to be in a stable state for production use, but same as any technology I think it would be foolish to adopt Reason without better understanding the reason it exists, the problems it's trying to solve, and the drawbacks it has.