11 ms·

I read the title as "the price we're paying for everything being written in JS these days"

Old_Thrashbarg 7y ago
Same, and I'd be more interesting in reading this alternative blogpost.
root_axis 7y ago
haha, programmers sure do love to virtue-signal with regard to JS. We get it, you're a sophisticated programmer that wouldn't be caught dead writing JS if you had a choice. It's a clever quip but not really contributing anything to the discussion of the topic at hand.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't cross into personal attack. We ban accounts that do that on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - root_axis 7y ago
    Ok. Just so I can understand a little better, in an ideal world, which part of my comment would I have omitted so that it wouldn't be considered a personal attack? I understand that the tone is sarcastic, but I am curious which part HN moderation regards as a personal attack. I didn't name call or use profanity, so it comes as something of a surprise to me.
    - dang 7y ago
      Your comment was pejorative, and then you made it personal by saying "you". That's crossing into personal attack by HN standards. If one takes out the personal pronoun, the comment is still snarky, which breaks the site guideline "Don't be snarky." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
carapace 7y ago
Me too. I keep asking people about the business value of Elm vs JS. Why isn't Elm-lang wildly popular? (I think I know the answer, but even so I'm interested in what other people think.)
- kolme 7y ago
  Because it's a business risk. - It's very easy to find JS programmers. There's a _lot_ of them. But programmers proficient with pure functional programming languages are harder to come by. - JS is natively supported by browsers and it is pretty much guaranteed that the code you write is going to work for ever. Elm on the other side, who knows? It might lose steam and go into support mode, or drop support, or maybe they introduce breaking changes in a future version. JS is a much safer bet. - Writing Elm does not guarantee a good polished product. You can write bad software in good languages and vice-versa. That being said, it's only a risk. Maybe your team is more comfortable with Elm and they get more productive. Maybe the language design makes easier writing code with less defects. Maybe it actually gives you an edge. It is hard to say if Elm brings value to your business. It most likely depends on what kind of a business that is (web agency than cranks 3 visit-card websites a day? Or is it one developing a complex app?) In any case, managers get very nervous about languages that are not mainstream. And they do have good reasons.
  - carapace 7y ago
    Thanks for replying. > But programmers proficient with pure functional programming languages are harder to come by. I used to get a similar argument when pushing Python over Java, and my counterargument is the same: I wouldn't hire a JS programmer who was afraid or unwilling or unable to learn Elm. I would bet that any normal person smart enough to solve Sudoku problems could learn Elm, I wouldn't make that bet with JS/CSS/HTML. > It might lose steam and go into support mode, or drop support, or maybe they introduce breaking changes in a future version. JS is a much safer bet. But who is using just JS these days? Frameworks and transpiling are the order of the day, no? Same argument applies to them. And JS is a moving target too. As for "breaking changes", well, it is just version 0.19 so far. Once they hit 1.0 I would bet on Elm being more stable than JS+Whatever. Weigh this against zero front end bugs. That's a staggering (if hard-to-quantify) cost savings. > Writing Elm does not guarantee a good polished product. You can write bad software in good languages and vice-versa. Yeah but that's not an argument in favor or against any particular language, and in the specific case of JS vs Elm I think it's clear Elm wins. If your developers are truly crap then, yeah, Elm won't save them. But then you also have bigger problems than what tech stack to use, eh?

Same, and I'd be more interesting in reading this alternative blogpost.

haha, programmers sure do love to virtue-signal with regard to JS. We get it, you're a sophisticated programmer that wouldn't be caught dead writing JS if you had a choice. It's a clever quip but not really contributing anything to the discussion of the topic at hand.

dang 7y ago
Please don't cross into personal attack. We ban accounts that do that on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- root_axis 7y ago
  Ok. Just so I can understand a little better, in an ideal world, which part of my comment would I have omitted so that it wouldn't be considered a personal attack? I understand that the tone is sarcastic, but I am curious which part HN moderation regards as a personal attack. I didn't name call or use profanity, so it comes as something of a surprise to me.
  - dang 7y ago
    Your comment was pejorative, and then you made it personal by saying "you". That's crossing into personal attack by HN standards. If one takes out the personal pronoun, the comment is still snarky, which breaks the site guideline "Don't be snarky." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

carapace 7y ago

Me too. I keep asking people about the business value of Elm vs JS. Why isn't Elm-lang wildly popular? (I think I know the answer, but even so I'm interested in what other people think.)

kolme 7y ago
Because it's a business risk. - It's very easy to find JS programmers. There's a _lot_ of them. But programmers proficient with pure functional programming languages are harder to come by. - JS is natively supported by browsers and it is pretty much guaranteed that the code you write is going to work for ever. Elm on the other side, who knows? It might lose steam and go into support mode, or drop support, or maybe they introduce breaking changes in a future version. JS is a much safer bet. - Writing Elm does not guarantee a good polished product. You can write bad software in good languages and vice-versa. That being said, it's only a risk. Maybe your team is more comfortable with Elm and they get more productive. Maybe the language design makes easier writing code with less defects. Maybe it actually gives you an edge. It is hard to say if Elm brings value to your business. It most likely depends on what kind of a business that is (web agency than cranks 3 visit-card websites a day? Or is it one developing a complex app?) In any case, managers get very nervous about languages that are not mainstream. And they do have good reasons.
- carapace 7y ago
  Thanks for replying. > But programmers proficient with pure functional programming languages are harder to come by. I used to get a similar argument when pushing Python over Java, and my counterargument is the same: I wouldn't hire a JS programmer who was afraid or unwilling or unable to learn Elm. I would bet that any normal person smart enough to solve Sudoku problems could learn Elm, I wouldn't make that bet with JS/CSS/HTML. > It might lose steam and go into support mode, or drop support, or maybe they introduce breaking changes in a future version. JS is a much safer bet. But who is using just JS these days? Frameworks and transpiling are the order of the day, no? Same argument applies to them. And JS is a moving target too. As for "breaking changes", well, it is just version 0.19 so far. Once they hit 1.0 I would bet on Elm being more stable than JS+Whatever. Weigh this against zero front end bugs. That's a staggering (if hard-to-quantify) cost savings. > Writing Elm does not guarantee a good polished product. You can write bad software in good languages and vice-versa. Yeah but that's not an argument in favor or against any particular language, and in the specific case of JS vs Elm I think it's clear Elm wins. If your developers are truly crap then, yeah, Elm won't save them. But then you also have bigger problems than what tech stack to use, eh?