6 ms·

I've never used Elm or interacted with the community but reading some of those posts remind me that the B in BDFL is quite important.

carapace 4y ago
Evan's hella nice. Some folks just really really don't like being told "No." (There are comments upthread calling the Elm community "happy cult" because they said "no" so nicely!) The complaints you hear about Elm are pretty much all of the "Evan said no" ilk. What you don't hear is are actual bug reports, eh? People aren't kvetching about how their Elm apps broke, eh? That silence is deafening, once you listen for it. Elm works. It may be the Easy-Bake Oven of web dev, but the things it cooks are perfectly edible! (Following that metaphor, most JS frameworks, etc. produce muffins with bits of broken glass in them.)
- edflsafoiewq 4y ago
  "Nice" and "benevolent" are not the same thing.
  - carapace 4y ago
    Do you have an actual point to make, or are you just being pedantic for fun?
    - xtian 4y ago
      Some of the most manipulative and self-serving people you’ll ever meet are “nice”.
      - carapace 4y ago
        So, is that a claim you're seriously making about Evan? - - - - Not to be arch, but this whole line of discussion is uninteresting to me. I'm glad to discuss Elm, but I don't want to hear unfounded character assassination of a kid who's only guilty of being willing to say "no" to people who want to change his language in ways that he's not into. From my POV Elm stands as a serious challenge to the entire JS ecosystem. I keep asking, "What's the business value argument for not using Elm?" and no one has a good answer.
        oxnrtr 4y ago
        > From my POV Elm stands as a serious challenge to the entire JS ecosystem. Lol, OK. Spoken like a cultist. Bad news for you: It's not going to happen.
        satvikpendem 4y ago
        > "What's the business value argument for not using Elm?" The ecosystem of Javascript is vast, in comparison to Elm, which can save time and money (especially now that apparently Elm doesn't allow JS code). JS devs are likely also cheaper than Elm devs due to the high supply. Just two reasons why I as a business owner would still write in Javascript/TypeScript over Elm.
        xtian 4y ago
        The crucial point is exactly what you're referencing ("his language"). The way that contributions, feedback, and issues were treated was very much not in line with a tool that people depend on for their work. It was in line with a personal hobby project, but the marketing and promotion did not set those expectations. They strongly promoted the project as a tool for use in industry. So your defense is not convincing to me as someone who did try to use this tool in a professional setting where I was accountable to a larger organization for delivering on technical requirements. People weren't asking to compromise or control the design of the language. They wanted to be able to contribute to the project (usually just first-party packages) in order to have their problems solved in a timely manner or have their issues addressed in some other way. This was usually after having invested hundreds of hours in the language, because the basic golden path was very polished in Elm. I can only speculate on the reasons why there was this disparity between marketing and reality. Certainly the language gained a lot more interest and community investment than a Show HN hobby project, and some people did benefit from that. I'm not making any specific claims about Evan. The "nice" aspect is relevant because while following the Elm community closely, I witnessed many harsh interactions on the part of Evan and Richard Feldman that were simply wrapped in gentle verbiage. Here's just one example (check the edit history): https://github.com/gdotdesign/elm-github-install/issues/62#issuecomment-415860947 https://github.com/gdotdesign/elm-github-install/issues/62#i...
        4y ago

carapace 4y ago

Evan's hella nice. Some folks just really really don't like being told "No." (There are comments upthread calling the Elm community "happy cult" because they said "no" so nicely!) The complaints you hear about Elm are pretty much all of the "Evan said no" ilk. What you don't hear is are actual bug reports, eh? People aren't kvetching about how their Elm apps broke, eh? That silence is deafening, once you listen for it. Elm works. It may be the Easy-Bake Oven of web dev, but the things it cooks are perfectly edible! (Following that metaphor, most JS frameworks, etc. produce muffins with bits of broken glass in them.)

edflsafoiewq 4y ago
"Nice" and "benevolent" are not the same thing.
- carapace 4y ago
  Do you have an actual point to make, or are you just being pedantic for fun?
  - xtian 4y ago
    Some of the most manipulative and self-serving people you’ll ever meet are “nice”.
    - carapace 4y ago
      So, is that a claim you're seriously making about Evan? - - - - Not to be arch, but this whole line of discussion is uninteresting to me. I'm glad to discuss Elm, but I don't want to hear unfounded character assassination of a kid who's only guilty of being willing to say "no" to people who want to change his language in ways that he's not into. From my POV Elm stands as a serious challenge to the entire JS ecosystem. I keep asking, "What's the business value argument for not using Elm?" and no one has a good answer.
      - oxnrtr 4y ago
        > From my POV Elm stands as a serious challenge to the entire JS ecosystem. Lol, OK. Spoken like a cultist. Bad news for you: It's not going to happen.
      - satvikpendem 4y ago
        > "What's the business value argument for not using Elm?" The ecosystem of Javascript is vast, in comparison to Elm, which can save time and money (especially now that apparently Elm doesn't allow JS code). JS devs are likely also cheaper than Elm devs due to the high supply. Just two reasons why I as a business owner would still write in Javascript/TypeScript over Elm.
      - xtian 4y ago
        The crucial point is exactly what you're referencing ("his language"). The way that contributions, feedback, and issues were treated was very much not in line with a tool that people depend on for their work. It was in line with a personal hobby project, but the marketing and promotion did not set those expectations. They strongly promoted the project as a tool for use in industry. So your defense is not convincing to me as someone who did try to use this tool in a professional setting where I was accountable to a larger organization for delivering on technical requirements. People weren't asking to compromise or control the design of the language. They wanted to be able to contribute to the project (usually just first-party packages) in order to have their problems solved in a timely manner or have their issues addressed in some other way. This was usually after having invested hundreds of hours in the language, because the basic golden path was very polished in Elm. I can only speculate on the reasons why there was this disparity between marketing and reality. Certainly the language gained a lot more interest and community investment than a Show HN hobby project, and some people did benefit from that. I'm not making any specific claims about Evan. The "nice" aspect is relevant because while following the Elm community closely, I witnessed many harsh interactions on the part of Evan and Richard Feldman that were simply wrapped in gentle verbiage. Here's just one example (check the edit history): https://github.com/gdotdesign/elm-github-install/issues/62#issuecomment-415860947 https://github.com/gdotdesign/elm-github-install/issues/62#i...
        4y ago