[brandonbloom]

Because the underlying DOM is essentially untyped. This is a low-level adaptor library. One could easily build a more strictly typed wrapper on top.

[glibgil]

Let me rephrase the question: why haven't they already?

[brandonbloom]

Why haven't you already?

They're literally announcing the untyped base library layer and the post specifically calls out the desire to build higher level abstractions. Elm is moving incredibly fast, so your question is totally unreasonable.

[glibgil]

I don't use Elm. I'm more interested in PureScript. But, the API looks silly for a Haskell like language. There is some positive feedback for whoever cares. Like, I wouldn't take that API out in public because everyone will think, "why is there string-based programming in Elm?"