[matsemann]

> making it impossible to actually use the language in production

Just FUD. I've been on a big team writing a webapp used by hundreds of thousands each day. While it's not necessarily my own first choice, it was great and the least error prone piece of software I've written in my career.

[ISV_Damocles]

It is impossible if you're being responsible. You don't choose a technology that could potentially block you from solving problems in the future unless it brings a huge value to you.

Elm's value proposition is mostly being a functional language with an opinionated MVU library baked in, so you can reproduce that value with a better functional language and selecting a similar MVU library in that other language, which means it should never actually cross the value bar above the risk it brings if you need a browser feature it doesn't support and actively prevents you from accessing.

[matsemann]

Now you're moving the goalpost. You said it was impossible to use in production. Which is clearly wrong.

[ISV_Damocles]

I am just clarifying why I consider it impossible.

Production is not some place you're supposed to cowboy code, but instead have a reasonable expectation that you will be able to continue supporting it for as many years as it operates, and it's impossible for anyone to responsibly use technology with known limitations that have bitten other real engineering teams that they can find zero workarounds for.

If you don't consider that an impossibility for a production environment, then I certainly wouldn't want to work with you on a team with production responsibilities.

[marc136]

Zero workarounds seems overly dramatic, here are a few: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39567011

If you want to rely on them for every possible future requirement or rather want to pick another tool is another question :D

Anyways, just building the compiler without that check was also not that hard.

[baobabKoodaa]

I've also had the pleasure of maintaining an Elm codebase. It was filled to the brim with state update bugs. You could never trust what you saw in your browser. Nobody in the team understood how the codebase worked. I spent days implementing some extremely simple changes, which barely worked (to the same standard as the rest of the codebase). Never again.

[matsemann]

I don't blame a Rust-codebase for being bad just because I don't know Rust.

[baobabKoodaa]

So, your positive anecdote was somehow valuable for the discussion, but my negative anecdote had absolutely no value? That's how anecdotes work?

[matsemann]

My positive anecdote proved that Elm is usable in production, which was the FUD I was refuting. Yours were irrelevant in that context.

[vsuperpower2020]

I've seen the word FUD 4 times on this page already. The "elm defense force" sounds a lot like cryptobros defending their rug pull. It's such an odd piece of language to adopt over people not liking some javascript compiler for perfectly valid reasons.

[marc136]

Funny that you have this impression.

To me it looks more like the elm-haters are out in force and the Elm users don't participate anymore on this site.

Many hateful comments here below a historic post prompted me to create a new account after a detox phase of >10 years.

So far I try to correct a false statement in the (as of writing this) top comment [1] or add a more neutral view [2]. And maybe I will add more of my personal opinion in the future - or participate in other interesting topics depending on my mood.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39555542 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39556395