rescript-compiler VS Elm

ReScript is a fully typed language with an easy to understand JS like syntax, blazing fast compiler, that compiles to JavaScript. You can easily drop it into an existing project, and there is even a way to generate TypeScript types if you want to add it to a TypeScript project!

If you’re a front-end developer, you should checkout ReScript[1], supposedly a JS-oriented successor of ReasonML and developed by the ReasonML team.

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

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.

As another commenter has already suggested, ReasonML has a lot of what you described here.

However, modern JS-oriented toolchain for ReasonML is called ReScript and you can learn more here: https://rescript-lang.org/

ReScript (before BuckleScript) https://rescript-lang.org/ is a functional language that can also use OOP. Ideal for Javascript and Typescript projects, React and servers. It integrates perfectly with Javascript and Typescript code https://rescript-lang.org/docs/react/latest/introduction

Thank you!

We invited Gabriel because we think what he's building is pretty cool. It showcases so much about EdgeDB: its type system, data model, query language, composability, introspection, etc.

I'm not a ReScript user myself. What I know is that it's a functional programming language somewhat heavily inspired by OCaml. Their website goes into details [1]

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

You might want to look into ReScript (https://rescript-lang.org/). It has strong static typing with type inference, and it is very fast.

This is because a “Tagged Union”, another word for TypeScript’s Discriminated Union, is a way to “tag which one is in use right now… we check the tag to see”. Just like when you’re shopping and check the tag of a piece of clothing to see what the price is, what size it is, or what material it’s made out of. Languages like ReScript compile many of their Unions (called Variants) to JavaScript Objects that have a tag property.

ReScript is "Fast, Simple, Fully Typed JavaScript from the Future". Let's take a look at how we can add it to an existing React project.

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/