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I'm only vaguely aware of the change. Can you elaborate?

thomasfortes 4y ago
The creator of bucklescript (ReasonML/OCaml to JS compiler) decided to drop ocaml support and gather the already built community around his new project (Rescript) and it wasn't well received by the part of the community that were interested in ReasonML (and OCaml) for native or hybrid applications, which is kind of obvious since: 1. Rescript is not ReasonML/OCaml, it is a new language. 2. Rescript doesn't compile to native code. Forks were being discussed, the creator didn't like the criticisms of his decision (which came as a surprise for most of the community), people didn't liked having the rug pulled out of their feet, aggressive comments were made, people were angry and the community got separated between web and native, both weaker than the united one. TL;DR; The creator decided that his project was for web only, alienated the native developers out of the blue and shattered the community.
d3nj4l 4y ago
You can read about the ReScript change here: https://rescript-lang.org/blog/bucklescript-is-rebranding https://rescript-lang.org/blog/bucklescript-is-rebranding I wouldn't go so far as GP as to call it "drama", but the split left Reason without a reason (pun intended) to exist or any activity for that matter. Most of the people who liked Reason for frontend usecases moved to ReScript since that at least had some momentum behind it. Since the split, Reason itself has been largely on life support, with no significant changes and almost no forum activity in the past year. So newcomers to Reason see a dead community for a language which is a syntax extension for another language with a (relatively) alive community. The fact that Reason hasn't seen a surge in enthusiasm corresponding to the enthusiasm in the OCaml community with the advent of 5.0 and multicore is proof enough that Reason is dead, and projects written in Reason should probably consider moving to OCaml entirely considering there are planned changes to the OCaml syntax for effects which I don't think are going to make it to Reason. Some people in the Reason world blame the ReScript people for this, which I think is entirely misplaced. The only reason (pun not intended this time) Reason has died off is that there is absolutely no clarity on the future of Reason. The creator of Reason, Jordan Walke, has been entirely MIA for about two years now. A version 4.0 was planned in 2020 and as of now hasn't come up. This issue was opened in Nov 2020 asking for future plans and is still unresolved, and the latest comment from a new developer just makes my point: https://github.com/reasonml/reason/issues/2634 https://github.com/reasonml/reason/issues/2634.
- thomasfortes 4y ago
  Agree with you, Reason is effectively dead, the "drama" part is that the decision came from nowhere, leaving the native devs with a sour taste and the frontend devs with a "Hey, we just changed the syntax without warning and will not support the old one anymore, good luck", which made me move all my projects out of reason ASAP, if the developers can pull out giant changes like that without warning, sorry, I will not use it, too unpredictable. Also, rebranding instead of starting a new project sounds just like "it's my baby, I'm gonna kill the old project so no one that disagrees with my decisions can continue it". > Some people in the Reason world blame the ReScript people for this, which I think is entirely misplaced. I mean, the way that the creator of ReScript behaved on discord to any criticism to his decisions at the time didn't helped...
  - l2dy 4y ago
    To be fair, you can still use Reason code in a ReScript project. However, the community has diverged.
  - d3nj4l 4y ago
    > "Hey, we just changed the syntax without warning and will not support the old one anymore, good luck" I think this is slightly uncharitable. The people working on BuckleScript had been unhappy about syntax for a while, and wanted to make it simpler for people coming from JS. They also kept supporting Reason syntax - it's quite literally in the announcement and forum threads from the time that old code will continue to work. I can't speak to why the rebrand went down the way it did, as none of us can know for sure, but I think it might have more to do with internal communication between team members than any one person taking their toys and going home, so to speak. > I mean, the way that the creator of ReScript behaved on discord to any criticism to his decisions at the time didn't helped I didn't hang around on the Reason discord (for good reason, I now suppose :P) but I don't think that had anything to do with Reason dying out. No matter how the ReScript people behaved, Reason native could've gone its own way, but it didn't, and the responsibility for that is on Reason. As much responsibility as there is, ofc. I don't mean to imply that the team behind Reason should've continued developing if they didn't want to, I just don't think the ReScript people should be held to account for how Reason evolved. (FWIW, I was interested in Reason only for native, and have zero interest in ReScript, so I say this as someone who is "on your side".)

The creator of bucklescript (ReasonML/OCaml to JS compiler) decided to drop ocaml support and gather the already built community around his new project (Rescript) and it wasn't well received by the part of the community that were interested in ReasonML (and OCaml) for native or hybrid applications, which is kind of obvious since: 1. Rescript is not ReasonML/OCaml, it is a new language. 2. Rescript doesn't compile to native code. Forks were being discussed, the creator didn't like the criticisms of his decision (which came as a surprise for most of the community), people didn't liked having the rug pulled out of their feet, aggressive comments were made, people were angry and the community got separated between web and native, both weaker than the united one. TL;DR; The creator decided that his project was for web only, alienated the native developers out of the blue and shattered the community.

d3nj4l 4y ago

You can read about the ReScript change here: https://rescript-lang.org/blog/bucklescript-is-rebranding https://rescript-lang.org/blog/bucklescript-is-rebranding I wouldn't go so far as GP as to call it "drama", but the split left Reason without a reason (pun intended) to exist or any activity for that matter. Most of the people who liked Reason for frontend usecases moved to ReScript since that at least had some momentum behind it. Since the split, Reason itself has been largely on life support, with no significant changes and almost no forum activity in the past year. So newcomers to Reason see a dead community for a language which is a syntax extension for another language with a (relatively) alive community. The fact that Reason hasn't seen a surge in enthusiasm corresponding to the enthusiasm in the OCaml community with the advent of 5.0 and multicore is proof enough that Reason is dead, and projects written in Reason should probably consider moving to OCaml entirely considering there are planned changes to the OCaml syntax for effects which I don't think are going to make it to Reason. Some people in the Reason world blame the ReScript people for this, which I think is entirely misplaced. The only reason (pun not intended this time) Reason has died off is that there is absolutely no clarity on the future of Reason. The creator of Reason, Jordan Walke, has been entirely MIA for about two years now. A version 4.0 was planned in 2020 and as of now hasn't come up. This issue was opened in Nov 2020 asking for future plans and is still unresolved, and the latest comment from a new developer just makes my point: https://github.com/reasonml/reason/issues/2634 https://github.com/reasonml/reason/issues/2634.

thomasfortes 4y ago
Agree with you, Reason is effectively dead, the "drama" part is that the decision came from nowhere, leaving the native devs with a sour taste and the frontend devs with a "Hey, we just changed the syntax without warning and will not support the old one anymore, good luck", which made me move all my projects out of reason ASAP, if the developers can pull out giant changes like that without warning, sorry, I will not use it, too unpredictable. Also, rebranding instead of starting a new project sounds just like "it's my baby, I'm gonna kill the old project so no one that disagrees with my decisions can continue it". > Some people in the Reason world blame the ReScript people for this, which I think is entirely misplaced. I mean, the way that the creator of ReScript behaved on discord to any criticism to his decisions at the time didn't helped...
- l2dy 4y ago
  To be fair, you can still use Reason code in a ReScript project. However, the community has diverged.
- d3nj4l 4y ago
  > "Hey, we just changed the syntax without warning and will not support the old one anymore, good luck" I think this is slightly uncharitable. The people working on BuckleScript had been unhappy about syntax for a while, and wanted to make it simpler for people coming from JS. They also kept supporting Reason syntax - it's quite literally in the announcement and forum threads from the time that old code will continue to work. I can't speak to why the rebrand went down the way it did, as none of us can know for sure, but I think it might have more to do with internal communication between team members than any one person taking their toys and going home, so to speak. > I mean, the way that the creator of ReScript behaved on discord to any criticism to his decisions at the time didn't helped I didn't hang around on the Reason discord (for good reason, I now suppose :P) but I don't think that had anything to do with Reason dying out. No matter how the ReScript people behaved, Reason native could've gone its own way, but it didn't, and the responsibility for that is on Reason. As much responsibility as there is, ofc. I don't mean to imply that the team behind Reason should've continued developing if they didn't want to, I just don't think the ReScript people should be held to account for how Reason evolved. (FWIW, I was interested in Reason only for native, and have zero interest in ReScript, so I say this as someone who is "on your side".)