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by server_bot 1868 days ago
We should encourage PL experimentation and welcome new languages!

But keep in mind that cost of entry for production usage these days is a full suite of tooling (package manager, code formatter, language server for IDEs, etc).

I didn't see a standout feature in this article on Grain that made me think the manpower investment in developing the language and tooling is worth it, but I could be wrong!

2 comments

At first it's really more attractive something for smaller teams building side projects. Maybe also small sub-components.

When dealing with TypeScript and the usual suspects like React + Redux, or AngularJS and its ilk, what bothers me is all the boilerplate and complexity. TypeScript contains a lot of baggage from Javascript.

A functional, well featured language that doesn't require a humongous runtime as a download (like Python on WASM, which works, but like 40mb to get you started...) might be an attractive solution there.

On the other hand, there are a host of reasons why the barrier to implementing those things has never been lower
Exactly, and with Wasm the barrier to adopt the new language is also way lower as it can be readily combined with modules written in other languages and shares the entire ecosystem.