[Blackarea]

I really came to love gleam over the last few months. I appreciate elixir getting a type system and remember that this was the big NoGo for me when I explored it a while back. I'd like to give it another chance some time, but I'm worried that it's like typescript - looks typed on the outside but for many libs and packages the types are just a dynamic/any. Is my fear justified? Beam is amazing btw

[barrell]

I would not entirely compare it to TypeScript. Due to pattern matching, legacy elixir will probably come out roughly 50% typed (extrapolating from my own usage, I'm not sure the accuracy of this number). Then since vanilla elixir is getting types (not a separate TypeElixir) I would venture anything actively maintained will get typed relatively quickly.

I personally do not like type systems, and still code in JS, not TS. Any JS artifacts I produce are untyped. Yet even my Elixir-code is nearly type ready.

So while TS is fighting an uphill battle, I think Elixir is working downhill.

[innocentoldguy]

Gleam doesn't give you access to the full amazingness of OTP and BEAM. Elixir does.

[abrookewood]

Why? Don't they all compile down to the same AST? How does Gleam prevent the use of OTP? Honest question - not overly familiar with Gleam

[cess11]

Elixir has had types since forever, both primitive and things like structs and shape based destructuring. Then there's Dialyzer and libraries like TypedStruct.

It's never been a wat-language in the style of JavaScript.

[throwawaymaths]

gleam's 1/0 = 0 is crazy just because the author doesn't want there to be any raises anywhere. problem is, in many real world scenarios 0 is used as a sentinel value that doesn't "just" mean 0. iirc reading somewhere (in a non gleam system where 1/0 = 0) there was a system where everyone woke up to having zero shares because a 0 share tx was posted to everyone's trading endpoint, and a zero share tx means "zero the account".

[Hasnep]

I think that's less likely to happen in Gleam because using 0 as a sentinel value would be unidiomatic, but I agree that's a very dangerous design choice.

[cies]

Yeah Gleam. Or Kotlin on the JVM is also quite similar and has compile-to-JS if needed.

[lawn]

Elixir can also compile to JS via Hologram!

Granted, it's alpha software and it's currently embedded in the Hologram framework, but still.

https://hologram.page/

[Blackarea]

What? Gleam can compile to js. I don't see the similarity to kotlin being oo and all. Gleams compile time is lightyears ahead of anything on the jvm. I appreciate kotlins nullability constraints but to me it seems the jvm ecosystem is too grown to give kotlin the space it needs. Also heared that java's pattern matching and exhaustive checks have surpassed kotlins? In that case it's just easier to role with java, no?