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I'm one of the weirdos who likes OCaml syntax, but in my eyes ReasonML is unfortunate. It fractures the community for (ironically) no real reason - not only is

by wk_end 6y ago

I'm one of the weirdos who likes OCaml syntax, but in my eyes ReasonML is unfortunate. It fractures the community for (ironically) no real reason - not only is it a new syntax, they're now writing a new standard library for it (Belt), as though the three existing ones (plus the JS one!) weren't enough! I don't think the new syntax is particularly nice either. I don't think js_of_ocaml supports any kind of JSX. That's the only real reason to use Reason over OCaml that I know of, and it's a good one. But if I'm being frank, even if OCaml/Reason is a nicer language overall, TypeScript is a statically-typed frontend development story that has way more community buy-in and way fewer rough edges in the ecosystem. Just use it.

zbaylin 6y ago
Belt isn't a standard library for Reason, it's a standard library for Bucklescript that has specific optimizations since it knows it's going to be compiled to JS. Reason uses the same Pervasives/Stdlib as OCaml.
modernerd 6y ago
That's helpful, thanks. The recent syntax switch[1] does feel like it will further fragment the community. And TypeScript has some pretty attractive functional projects: https://github.com/gcanti/fp-ts https://github.com/gcanti/fp-ts https://github.com/Matechs-Garage/matechs-effect https://github.com/Matechs-Garage/matechs-effect [1]: https://reasonml.org/blog/bucklescript-8-1-new-syntax https://reasonml.org/blog/bucklescript-8-1-new-syntax
- brmgb 6y ago
  There isn't much to fragment to be honest. From what I have seen, there seems to be little buy-in for Reason in the Ocaml community which is not particularly surprising considering it's supposed to solve a pain point no one in the community actually has (Ocaml syntax is fine - it's obviously more Algol-like than C-like but clearly the existing community doesn't care). Reason seems to be mostly pushed by Facebook towards Javascript developers. That might work. Then again, esy is nice.

by wk_end 6y ago

zbaylin 6y ago

Belt isn't a standard library for Reason, it's a standard library for Bucklescript that has specific optimizations since it knows it's going to be compiled to JS. Reason uses the same Pervasives/Stdlib as OCaml.

modernerd 6y ago

That's helpful, thanks. The recent syntax switch[1] does feel like it will further fragment the community. And TypeScript has some pretty attractive functional projects: https://github.com/gcanti/fp-ts https://github.com/gcanti/fp-ts https://github.com/Matechs-Garage/matechs-effect https://github.com/Matechs-Garage/matechs-effect [1]: https://reasonml.org/blog/bucklescript-8-1-new-syntax https://reasonml.org/blog/bucklescript-8-1-new-syntax

brmgb 6y ago
There isn't much to fragment to be honest. From what I have seen, there seems to be little buy-in for Reason in the Ocaml community which is not particularly surprising considering it's supposed to solve a pain point no one in the community actually has (Ocaml syntax is fine - it's obviously more Algol-like than C-like but clearly the existing community doesn't care). Reason seems to be mostly pushed by Facebook towards Javascript developers. That might work. Then again, esy is nice.