Mithril.js VS Elm

I don’t enjoy React much, but (as I’ve commented before) I do love Mithril (https://mithril.js.org). Immediate-mode UI via a vDOM, like React, but small, simple, and with none of the reactivity complications. I’d never go back to building apps with pure JS.

You can find more information about Mithril.js on its official website.

The idea of nested function calls to build HTML is not new. Back in the hey-day of JS frameworks, this was a common vdom pattern. I kinda miss [MithrilJS](https://mithril.js.org/#dom-elements)

I have mixed feelings about React. I like it better than jQuery, and better than other JS frameworks I’ve used.

But I much prefer Mithril (https://mithril.js.org/), which offers the same immediate-mode advantages (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19746235) but without the crazy complex dependency-tracking reactivity.

I rather liked this comment on React: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38640051

Vue with Vite (the builder/runner) is a stable, open source option. It is really a lightweight start where you're mostly writing HTML with interpolated data, and Vue is updating values correctly and performantly. Just build your reactive HTML app in one file and break into separate components as you're feeling the spirit. https://vuejs.org/guide/quick-start

Mithril if you just want to drop in want a tiny, complete reactive library that doesn't require a build step--this one is most like what you might end up creating in a large jQuery app. You can understand everything from the homepage. https://mithril.js.org/

HTMX if you really like HTML conventions. This doesn't feel jQuery-like and depends on your approach to your server app. https://htmx.org/

React is still has gratuitous complexity. If you need some React like, take a look at mithril which is simpler and much smaller.

The submitter creating multiple var -> let PRs (one PR per file), was also doing this in other projects, and would've broken some of their users.

https://github.com/MithrilJS/mithril.js/pull/2880#pullreques...

And he created multiple PRs there too. And didn't follow their workflow...

Elm [1] is based on a similar idea. Build your app from pure functions that return HTML tags.

[1] https://elm-lang.org/

You also wouldn't really be creating your own new programing language. You would be creating something that can run JavaScript by following JavaScript standards and syntax. You might be able to add some non-standard features of your own on top of those standards, or include your own standard library of helpers or utilities, but you can't completely make a new or alternative language and then load it in the browser (or at least not by reimplementing ECMAScript standards... you actually can make your own language that runs within any Javascript enviroment, if you provide an interpreter or compiler that transforms it into valid JS. Some people have done something like this, eg Elm: https://elm-lang.org/).

You should at least have a look at https://elm-lang.org/ it is a pure functional language like Haskell (although with fewer fancy syntax/type classes) but it has some lovely libraries for visualisation and even with plain elm (+ elm-ui) doing string transformations can be easily done.

I get it. However, the whole point of using Unions to narrow your types, ensure only a set of possible scenarios can occur, and only access data of a particular union when it’s safe to do so. That’s some of what pattern matching can provide, and 100% of what using switch statements in TypeScript with their Discriminated Unions can provide. Yes, it’s not 100% exhaustive, but TypeScript is not soundly typed, and even Elm which is still has the same issue TypeScript does: You’re running in JavaScript where anything is possible. So it’s good enough to build with and much better than what you had.

The beauty of a language like Elm (and other lambda-calculus / functional programming inspired languages) is that there's very little transformation involved in going from an idea to code. And that seems to have a big impact on getting things done.

I think the most fun and approachable way for beginners to build games with functional programming is with Elm [1].

See a few (small, demo) games built by the community in [2] .

Notice Elm has abandoned the FRP approach in favor of Model-View-Update [3].

[1] https://elm-lang.org/