reason VS mirage

Hey HN, at Ahrefs we have been working on an online book that hopefully helps React developers get up and running with Melange, an OCaml to JavaScript compiler. You can read more about Melange here: https://melange.re/.

There are still a few chapters that we'd like to add before considering it "complete", but it might be already helpful for some folks out there, that's why we decided to publish it early.

The book uses Reason syntax to implement React components using ReasonReact components. You can read more about both in:

https://reasonml.github.io/

ReScript is "Fast, Simple, Fully Typed JavaScript from the Future". What that means is that ReScript has a lightning fast compiler, an easy to learn JS like syntax, strong static types, with amazing features like pattern matching and variant types. Until 2020 it was called "BuckleScript" and is closely related to ReasonML.

This tracks with how I've seen "normal" languages converge on similar, flawed imitations of better type systems through tools and repurposed syntax. Thank you for confirming.

Do you have any recommendations or warnings regarding general languages which reach in the opposite direction? Reason[1] and F#[2] are both examples: they attach pre-existing ecosystems and compile-for-$PLATFORM tools to OCaml-like typing.

OCaml itself is also intriguing for personal projects. However, I'm worried the "GPL" in its standard library's LGPL license might scare people despite both the linking exception and Jane Street's MIT alternative.

1. https://reasonml.github.io/

ReasonML purely as a syntax layer on top of OCaml is still being updated and released[1]. Incidentally, I'm one of the maintainers of that project too :-)

With this Melange release, we're hoping to somewhat revive ReasonML and channel some folks back to the community from the perspective of a vertically integrated platform that has seen major investment in the past few years.

[1]: https://github.com/reasonml/reason

Why not use https://reasonml.github.io/ instead? Or just use Typescript?

Quieted down, but I depend on projects with worst graphs:

https://github.com/reasonml/reason/graphs/contributors

There is also reasonml for Web development.

Interesting, and thanks.

I didn't know about those. I kind of thought you may have used MirageOS, which I had read about earlier. It is done in OCaml.

https://mirage.io/

Unix system programming in OCaml (2014)

https://ocaml.github.io/ocamlunix/

"MirageOS is a library operating system that constructs unikernels for secure, high-performance network applications across a variety of cloud computing and mobile platforms."

https://mirage.io/

That was/is part of the promise of the whole unikernel thing, no?

https://mirage.io/ or similar could then let you boot your database. That said, it's not really taken off from what I can tell, so I'm guessing there's more to it than that.

MirageOS is not Rust, but in the ballpark!

https://mirage.io/

OCaml MirageOS? https://mirage.io/

MirageOS is a runtime for OCaml to create unikernels. They describe themselves as "library operating system". Probably not quite what you were asking for, but I think it's quite interesting for certain use cases (e.g. running services as standalone unikernels in VMs or embedded devices instead of "traditional" programs on top of a general purpose OS).