5 ms·

Elm is awesome, its compiler is awesome, but its ecosystem is kinda stalling, isn't it? I mean, a lot of libraries aren't updated to the last lang version, deb

by folex 5y ago

Elm is awesome, its compiler is awesome, but its ecosystem is kinda stalling, isn't it? I mean, a lot of libraries aren't updated to the last lang version, debugging JS-Elm interactions been a real challenge for years, yadda yadda. Overall I'd say Elm ecosystem doesn't receive enough attention to survive. I'm not complaining, I'm just sad about that and kinda surprised I didn't found a mention of that in the OP article.

mechelephant 5y ago
I would argue the opposite! The elm slack is very active with people who frequently contribute to the ecosystem. I don't think the "a lot of libraries aren't updated to the last lang version" is true, the vast majority are. Debugging elm-JS interactions is not really a problem when using the standard interop methods of ports and webcomponents. It's just not something that comes up often. Source: have been writing elm professionally for the last 2 and a half years.
- folex 5y ago
  Disclaimer: I'm just describing an annoying technical problem, it's not a blocker for the use of Elm. Elm _is_ great :) I have been using Elm for a kinda-simple project on my work: dashboard for microservices, deployment configs, nodes, etc. One of the biggest time-drains was debugging JS-Elm port interactions, looking whether there is a mismatch in types. Cuz the error looks like this: Elm eventreceiver failed: Error: Trying to send an unexpected type of value through port `collectPeerInfo`: [object Object] I know of no way of even looking into that `[object Object]`. Simply logging its fields would already be a relief, lest telling what field/type caused the error.
jaeming 5y ago
As I understand it, there was a rift in the community over the leadership's tone in messaging and communication. Some Developers also felt like they could not contribute in a meaningful way or have constructive discussion with maintainers. See posts like these for more details and comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16510267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16510267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22821447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22821447 There are also several great alternatives now. F# with Fable and Elmish for example: https://zaid-ajaj.github.io/the-elmish-book/#/ https://zaid-ajaj.github.io/the-elmish-book/#/ And Bucklescript TEA with Ocaml or Reason: https://github.com/OvermindDL1/bucklescript-tea https://github.com/OvermindDL1/bucklescript-tea Some others have also gone on to develop new languages taking inspiration from Elm: https://www.mint-lang.com/ https://www.mint-lang.com/
- rtfeldman 5y ago
  Honestly I think the main reason for this perception is that people in the Elm community have gotten increasingly tired of correcting inaccuracies people like to post about Elm on Hacker News. I spent a bunch of time doing that in the past, and eventually stopped because I felt like Sisyphus. The same people would crop up on the next thread repeating the same things anyway. Of course if the claims go unchallenged, it leads to the perception that they're accurate...but that doesn't make engaging with them any more enjoyable a way to spend one's free time. If you want to check the health of the Elm community, visit Elm Slack and ask in the #beginners channel how people feel about it. It takes about the same amount of time as posting a HN comment, but it gives a very different perspective than the one you'd get if your main source of Elm information was Hacker News comments! :) http://elmlang.herokuapp.com/ http://elmlang.herokuapp.com/
  - superdisk 5y ago
    Speaking as someone who liked Elm for a while, then abandoned it, I will say that the biggest problem with the language is absolutely its leadership. Development moves at an absolutely glacial pace and basically takes place with no transparency at all. I would argue that it's more like a "source available" project than an "open source" one since the core dev team is so exclusionary. Most planning takes place inside Evan's head, leaving others to just speculate as to what's going to happen to the language. On top of this, the community is run like a dictatorship. Dissent is silenced and banned, and faux positivity is spread far and wide. I got sick of it and was banned from the Elm subreddit after I expressed my frustration. That's pretty much when I gave up on the language, years ago, on version 0.18 (fwiw, they're on version 0.19 now, that's how slow updates are)
    - rtfeldman 5y ago
      This is an example of the type of post I was referring to being tired of correcting. I don't use Reddit anymore, but if memory serves there have been about 5 people total banned from the aforementioned Elm subreddit, which is fewer than 1 ban per year it's existed. I invite anyone to evalute the accuracy of "Dissent is silenced and banned" with that data point in mind, and to evaluate the accuracy of the other above claims accordingly.
aeturnum 5y ago
I'm not an Elm veteran like a lot of the folks here, but I think an aspect of Elm is that a lot of the traditional ways that people expand ecosystems are discouraged by Elm's approach. For instance, components are hard to do in Elm and are discouraged in the documentation[1]. So my own personal Elm projects have involved a lot of reading other code and often copying and modifying open source code, but it's hard to wholesale import components in the way that JavaScript and other languages do it. My experience with the language is that it is very easy to do what I want in it, but it seems more difficult to share that as an open source contribution in Elm than in similar languages. [1] https://guide.elm-lang.org/webapps/structure.html https://guide.elm-lang.org/webapps/structure.html

by folex 5y ago

mechelephant 5y ago

I would argue the opposite! The elm slack is very active with people who frequently contribute to the ecosystem. I don't think the "a lot of libraries aren't updated to the last lang version" is true, the vast majority are. Debugging elm-JS interactions is not really a problem when using the standard interop methods of ports and webcomponents. It's just not something that comes up often. Source: have been writing elm professionally for the last 2 and a half years.

folex 5y ago
Disclaimer: I'm just describing an annoying technical problem, it's not a blocker for the use of Elm. Elm _is_ great :) I have been using Elm for a kinda-simple project on my work: dashboard for microservices, deployment configs, nodes, etc. One of the biggest time-drains was debugging JS-Elm port interactions, looking whether there is a mismatch in types. Cuz the error looks like this: Elm eventreceiver failed: Error: Trying to send an unexpected type of value through port `collectPeerInfo`: [object Object] I know of no way of even looking into that `[object Object]`. Simply logging its fields would already be a relief, lest telling what field/type caused the error.

jaeming 5y ago

As I understand it, there was a rift in the community over the leadership's tone in messaging and communication. Some Developers also felt like they could not contribute in a meaningful way or have constructive discussion with maintainers. See posts like these for more details and comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16510267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16510267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22821447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22821447 There are also several great alternatives now. F# with Fable and Elmish for example: https://zaid-ajaj.github.io/the-elmish-book/#/ https://zaid-ajaj.github.io/the-elmish-book/#/ And Bucklescript TEA with Ocaml or Reason: https://github.com/OvermindDL1/bucklescript-tea https://github.com/OvermindDL1/bucklescript-tea Some others have also gone on to develop new languages taking inspiration from Elm: https://www.mint-lang.com/ https://www.mint-lang.com/

rtfeldman 5y ago
Honestly I think the main reason for this perception is that people in the Elm community have gotten increasingly tired of correcting inaccuracies people like to post about Elm on Hacker News. I spent a bunch of time doing that in the past, and eventually stopped because I felt like Sisyphus. The same people would crop up on the next thread repeating the same things anyway. Of course if the claims go unchallenged, it leads to the perception that they're accurate...but that doesn't make engaging with them any more enjoyable a way to spend one's free time. If you want to check the health of the Elm community, visit Elm Slack and ask in the #beginners channel how people feel about it. It takes about the same amount of time as posting a HN comment, but it gives a very different perspective than the one you'd get if your main source of Elm information was Hacker News comments! :) http://elmlang.herokuapp.com/ http://elmlang.herokuapp.com/
- superdisk 5y ago
  Speaking as someone who liked Elm for a while, then abandoned it, I will say that the biggest problem with the language is absolutely its leadership. Development moves at an absolutely glacial pace and basically takes place with no transparency at all. I would argue that it's more like a "source available" project than an "open source" one since the core dev team is so exclusionary. Most planning takes place inside Evan's head, leaving others to just speculate as to what's going to happen to the language. On top of this, the community is run like a dictatorship. Dissent is silenced and banned, and faux positivity is spread far and wide. I got sick of it and was banned from the Elm subreddit after I expressed my frustration. That's pretty much when I gave up on the language, years ago, on version 0.18 (fwiw, they're on version 0.19 now, that's how slow updates are)
  - rtfeldman 5y ago
    This is an example of the type of post I was referring to being tired of correcting. I don't use Reddit anymore, but if memory serves there have been about 5 people total banned from the aforementioned Elm subreddit, which is fewer than 1 ban per year it's existed. I invite anyone to evalute the accuracy of "Dissent is silenced and banned" with that data point in mind, and to evaluate the accuracy of the other above claims accordingly.

aeturnum 5y ago

I'm not an Elm veteran like a lot of the folks here, but I think an aspect of Elm is that a lot of the traditional ways that people expand ecosystems are discouraged by Elm's approach. For instance, components are hard to do in Elm and are discouraged in the documentation[1]. So my own personal Elm projects have involved a lot of reading other code and often copying and modifying open source code, but it's hard to wholesale import components in the way that JavaScript and other languages do it. My experience with the language is that it is very easy to do what I want in it, but it seems more difficult to share that as an open source contribution in Elm than in similar languages. [1] https://guide.elm-lang.org/webapps/structure.html https://guide.elm-lang.org/webapps/structure.html