roc VS package.elm-lang.org

Their FAQ is an eminently reasonable breakdown of their choices:

https://github.com/roc-lang/roc/blob/main/FAQ.md

I don't fully agree with all of the reasoning, but it's a reasonable position to stake.

If you forget what parametrisation and functions are, then Roc's modules look like they actually do that.

Reminds me of: https://github.com/roc-lang/roc/blob/main/FAQ.md#why-doesnt-...

> How would a user interface written in a functional language look?

Maybe you're not aware of Elm?

https://elm-lang.org

Elm is really functional, unlike the likes of React that are just partially, kind of functional.

There's an attempt at bringing Elm to the desktop, the Roc language... here's an UI example written in Roc:

https://github.com/roc-lang/roc/blob/main/examples/gui/hello...

What are your thoughts on the direct descendant, Roc? [0] I know it's pre v0.1 so maybe you don't have any, but as a fellow Elm lover it seems pretty compelling on the surface albeit less directly frontend-dev focused.

[0] https://github.com/roc-lang/roc

I might be misunderstanding something, but, for example, look at this "host"/platform: https://github.com/roc-lang/roc/blob/main/examples/cli/tui-platform/host.zig

You are not alone. The other day I was checking out a new programming language and the author rewrote the unsafe rust part to zig: https://github.com/roc-lang/roc/blob/main/FAQ.md#why-does-ro...

Check out Roc[0][1] by Richard Feldman; it's early-stages (perhaps earlier stages than Elm?) but from everything I've seen it looks a bit like a spiritual successor to Elm, though focused more on native applications (but still seems to have its sights set on webassembly support too)

[0] https://www.roc-lang.org

[1] https://github.com/roc-lang/roc

Also the fact that their package manager is strongly coupled against https://package.elm-lang.org/. There is no way to override it. This means that if that package site ever goes down, you will be left with an unbuildable project. Seems pretty risky to me.

Imagine, for example, you have a component library that you don't want to publish to the public package.elm-lang.org. How do you make that available just within your company?

Not to be silly but I was getting ready to do my port & all but clicking on "source" from with package.elm-lang.org takes me to elm-charts, not elm-plot.

Elm has packages prefaced with the repo owner, so its mdgriffith/elm-ui and not just "elm-ui".

If you're dealing with some kind of currency it's better to use a Decimal type which has few packages on the ecosystem.

If you are looking for a complete API documentation you should be browsing https://package.elm-lang.org/ ; I still find it lacking compared to other programming languages, but it's definitely more complete that the starting guide.

There are two ways of structuring state. Record with each page's state in its own field OR a custom type with the variants containing the state for the page (this is what you see in elm-spa-example or package.elm-lang.org). The tabs you describe behave like the first approach.

Elm is a strongly typed functional language, compiler, package manager, and framework. You write in the Elm language, and it compiles to JavaScript for use in the browser. The Elm compiler has 2 basic modes of development, and production. It optionally has a REPL if you want to test some basic code. The package manager uses it’s own website and structure using elm.json, instead of package.json. The framework is what Elm is most known for, and was the inspiration for Redux.

I was considering doing just that, using nginx server. I was using Evan's git repo for Elm packages (website: https://package.elm-lang.org/) (git: https://github.com/elm/package.elm-lang.org ) where he does uses that. So I think I will try this first and then consider deploying the binary if I can. Thanks for the advice!