Funny timing. I literally just started poking around with Gleam last night. Got it installed, I think I have the LSP set up, though I wasn't really seeing much autocomplete in nvim. Either way, I'm already pretty excited about it. I love functional languages, I like fast languages, and I like them statically typed. Gleam seems to check all those boxes, so I'm looking forward to digging in more.
What is Gleam? page could really use a definition.
Edit: On review, it seems the best description of Gleam is in the bio for the one of the presenters (which doesn't really say much about them). Apparently it's a programming language.
It's a language that runs on top of Erlang VM (called BEAM), similar how Clojure or Scala reuse Java VM. There are other languages that use Erlang VM, like Elixir or LFE.
Gleam is interesting because it's the first statically typed language for Erlang VM, other languages for it can have gradual typing and type hints (TypeScript-style), but under the hood they are still dynamic.
The team behind it cares about adoption so they try to do many things around the language right: they have a compiler, a package manager, a code formatter, an LSP server. So, while the developer experience may seem somewhat rough you still get a feeling of maturity. Gleam doesn't feel like someone's experiment or a toy, but rather like a language that will be around and actively developed for decades.
It seems to be an Erlang-like language. The gleam.run site linked below refers to BEAM languages, which I haven’t heard of before.
I’ve read the entire front page. I don’t know more than that. A wonderful example of people who already know the answer writing the text. They really need a concise explanation. That said, they did very well in their explanation of benefits - the other part of a landing page - and I’d be keen to learn more.
From the conference page:
> the Gleam programming language, a friendly language for building type-safe systems that scale! It runs on the Erlang virtual machine, as well as on JavaScript runtimes.
And that sounds really intriguing. But nowhere does it explain why or how it is ‘friendly’. Erlang has a mystique and I suspect there’s a really solid niche here they’ve found.
It's really a joyful language. Kind off rusty minus the borrow-checker and the mutability. In it's core it's just pattern-matching and functions/closures as first class citizens.
The ecosystem is young and you have to search a bit to find the right tools for the job or the gleam way to do things.
I tried it because you can use the same language for Front- and Backend it's biggest Frontend lib called "Lustre" is hyped to be the Elm successor. Anyways gleaming away for 2-3 weeks now and it's the best DX that I ever had - no Beam experience upfront btw.
It's actually right there on the front page "Hello! I’m Louis, the creator of the Gleam programming language, a friendly language for building type-safe systems that scale!"
Honestly good question. Second time Gleam marketing has showed up on front page in a few days. I’m pretty well plugged in to the state of the industry and never heard of it.
Was super surprised to see this #1 on the front page just now. Really makes you wonder.
xwowsersx|6 months ago
henryfjordan|6 months ago
Edit: On review, it seems the best description of Gleam is in the bio for the one of the presenters (which doesn't really say much about them). Apparently it's a programming language.
andrewl-hn|6 months ago
Gleam is interesting because it's the first statically typed language for Erlang VM, other languages for it can have gradual typing and type hints (TypeScript-style), but under the hood they are still dynamic.
The team behind it cares about adoption so they try to do many things around the language right: they have a compiler, a package manager, a code formatter, an LSP server. So, while the developer experience may seem somewhat rough you still get a feeling of maturity. Gleam doesn't feel like someone's experiment or a toy, but rather like a language that will be around and actively developed for decades.
vintagedave|6 months ago
I’ve read the entire front page. I don’t know more than that. A wonderful example of people who already know the answer writing the text. They really need a concise explanation. That said, they did very well in their explanation of benefits - the other part of a landing page - and I’d be keen to learn more.
From the conference page:
> the Gleam programming language, a friendly language for building type-safe systems that scale! It runs on the Erlang virtual machine, as well as on JavaScript runtimes.
And that sounds really intriguing. But nowhere does it explain why or how it is ‘friendly’. Erlang has a mystique and I suspect there’s a really solid niche here they’ve found.
Blackarea|6 months ago
ch4s3|6 months ago
ofrzeta|6 months ago
righthand|6 months ago
Maybe not every web page has to explain everything all the time?
bradhe|6 months ago
Was super surprised to see this #1 on the front page just now. Really makes you wonder.
eterm|6 months ago
techlatest_net|6 months ago
[deleted]
abrahms|6 months ago
Jtsummers|6 months ago