4 ms·

There are TONS of JVM languages and nobody is complaining about that. BEAM is much smaller and a very nice target IMO. I learned Erlang but found it too weird f

There are TONS of JVM languages and nobody is complaining about that. BEAM is much smaller and a very nice target IMO. I learned Erlang but found it too weird for my tastes. Elixir lacked a type system when I evaluated it, and that steered me away from it. Gleam feels kind of like Elm felt. Small, simple, and safe. It feels very intentional and designed for a particular purpose and audience. I did their online tutorial and felt comfortable with the language in one sitting. Can’t say that for many other languages.

bmitc 2y ago
Who is choosing anything but Kotlin for new projects on the JVM? The point is that beyond some basic typing things, programs written in Erlang, Elixir, and Gleam will all have the same core structure. Immutable data plus pattern matching plus BEAM processes has a pretty strong affect on any BEAM language.
- tmountain 2y ago
  > Who is choosing anything but Kotlin for new projects on the JVM? I dunno... Scala, Clojure, and Groovy users? Small user bases, but the languages are not dead.
  - bmitc 2y ago
    That's kind of my point. Does the JVM really need four different general purpose languages with their own ecosystems to split the JVM ecosystem and userbase?
    - Alupis 2y ago
      Why not? There's like 483 different application frameworks for the JVM too. The more choices the better - it lets ideas cross-pollinate, and the best ideas get borrowed/stolen. Some people like different syntax, bindings, etc. I find the opposite more troubling, actually. Take the C# ecosystem and see how there's one de-facto application framework (.NET), one logging lib, one etc... It's usually Microsoft's way or the highway, and 3rd party libraries and frameworks struggle to get any adoption. Consequently, that ecosystem is much smaller, less diverse, and less innovative.

4 ms·

There are TONS of JVM languages and nobody is complaining about that. BEAM is much smaller and a very nice target IMO. I learned Erlang but found it too weird f

by tmountain 2y ago

bmitc 2y ago
Who is choosing anything but Kotlin for new projects on the JVM? The point is that beyond some basic typing things, programs written in Erlang, Elixir, and Gleam will all have the same core structure. Immutable data plus pattern matching plus BEAM processes has a pretty strong affect on any BEAM language.
- tmountain 2y ago
  > Who is choosing anything but Kotlin for new projects on the JVM? I dunno... Scala, Clojure, and Groovy users? Small user bases, but the languages are not dead.
  - bmitc 2y ago
    That's kind of my point. Does the JVM really need four different general purpose languages with their own ecosystems to split the JVM ecosystem and userbase?
    - Alupis 2y ago
      Why not? There's like 483 different application frameworks for the JVM too. The more choices the better - it lets ideas cross-pollinate, and the best ideas get borrowed/stolen. Some people like different syntax, bindings, etc. I find the opposite more troubling, actually. Take the C# ecosystem and see how there's one de-facto application framework (.NET), one logging lib, one etc... It's usually Microsoft's way or the highway, and 3rd party libraries and frameworks struggle to get any adoption. Consequently, that ecosystem is much smaller, less diverse, and less innovative.