[psd1]

I've had a great time discovering Fable, which compiles F# to JS or TS.

The cost of moving from VSCode to neovim has always put me off, but if I could write the config in F# it would tempt me more.

How far is standard ML from F#?

Is there any existing compiler for F# => Lua?

[humzashahid98]

Standard ML is pretty simple and easy to pick up, but a weak point is the lack of { record with updatedValue } syntax to create a new record which is the same as an existing one but with some value changed. You have to specify every field in the record which can be a pain depending on how large your record is.

Standard ML has some nice features though and I think what I mentioned is the only serious shortcoming (except for ecosystem if that's important to you).

Standard ML is also structurally (but strongly) typed, unlike F# and the vast majority of nominally typed languages, which is rare but nice.

type person = { age : int, name : string }

is the same as the type

type animal = { age : int, name = string }

but this hasn't been an issue foe me, and structural typing means you can avoid defining the type at all which is convenient for small records.

For example, a function to increment age has no need for you to define the type.

fun grow { name, age } = { name = name, age = age + 1 }

I think Standard ML helps you understand the origin of some common FP idioms. Like tuples are really just records and SML treats them as such. The empty record {} is the same as the empty tuple (): both are the unit type. And a record like { 1 : "a", 2 : "b" } is exactly the same as the tuple ("a", "b").

[sshine]

> How far is standard ML from F#?

There was a time when F# was just an OCaml extension for .NET, but it has developed a lot since.

You may not find a lot of in-depth comparisons between F# and Standard ML, because Standard ML isn't widely mentioned outside of academic research. But you do find comparisons between F# and OCaml, and that may paint a very similar picture:

https://jkone27-3876.medium.com/comparing-ocaml-to-f-f75e4ab...

The most significant differences I can think of are:

1) Standard ML and OCaml have a higher-order module system, and F# has interfaces that you can parameterise over generics.

2) The OCaml ecosystem is functional code on top of functional code, and F# is made to interact with non-functional code on .NET. (As for Standard ML, there isn't much of an ecosystem.)

[neonsunset]

Unless you are targeting browser, not using .NET as back-end for F# seems like a poor idea as you really are sacrificing the tooling and a lot of performance.

[psd1]

That doesn't make sense. Neovim is not a .net citizen. It speaks Lua.

[lysecret]

Have you been using Fable? What has been your experience?

[psd1]

Not in production.

As an F# newbie, I hit some incompatibility early on with my initial library choices. Not everything works in fable. When I found Safe Stack, that went away.

Then it was great. Hot reload; generated js is passable; I'm doing front end in F# with zero JS and almost no html.

[JaggerJo]

I’ve used Fable in production. It just works most of the time, but it’s not seamless.