Thanks for this Joey - good to hear stuff like this, putting things into
perspective - hard to find in an easy digestible form.


On Thu, 26 May 2016 at 16:40 Joey Eremondi <joey.eremo...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I feel Elm with dependent types is probably just Idris. They seem to have
> similar pragmatic philosophies, started from Haskell but have been
> gradually breaking in ways to make things nicer, try to make good error
> messages, etc. I'd love to see what TEA looks like in Idris though. And it
> compiles to JS!
>
> The big thing with dependent types is that they make inference impossible,
> forcing annotations to be added at weird places. Error message generation
> for dependent types is a nightmare: I'm doing my thesis on improving error
> messages right now, but it is far from a solved problem. Likewise, you can
> only write terminating functions, which adds a degree of awkwardness to
> code, especially anything involving Integers. So a lot of Elm's strengths
> would go away if it were to become a dependently typed language. Adding
> these features in a controlled way that didn't hurt inference for the rest
> of the language would be cool, but this is an open problem.
>
> The thing with Elm is, a lot of the pieces were already there to be put
> together. The typechecking of Elm is not revolutionary, and type inference
> is a well understood problem. Elm put them together in a really clean,
> practical, usable way, and targeted JS, which everyone needs.
>
> Once you move into dependent types, there's less of a consensus on what
> "next-generation" would look like. We know how to do type checking, but
> (limited) inference, efficient checking, message generation, are all
> undergoing research right now.
>
> Hopefully I'm not sounding too much like a downer! I'm excited for what
> dependent types can offer, but I think we're still a ways away from a
> language that could be as clean as Elm.
>
> On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 3:30 AM, John Orford <john.orf...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> the first rule of Elm Type Club is you don't have to talk about types.
>>
>> adding them back into the mix'd prob be hairy for a lot of people - then
>> again if you could do it in a v friendly way, there's lotsa benefits... I
>> heard Matz of Ruby fame talk about something similar once.
>>
>> On Thu, 26 May 2016 at 12:17 Zachary Kessin <zkes...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I have thought about the idea of building a next gen elm with idris
>>> style dependent types. To be called "Pine" of course ;)
>>>
>>> Mind you I have neither the skills nor the time to do such a thing. But
>>> its a cool idea
>>>
>>> Zach
>>> ᐧ
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 9:56 AM, John Orford <john.orf...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks for the answers guys,
>>>>
>>>> Summing up, because the language is more restricted (doesn't have a lot
>>>> of the Java kitchen sink semantics for example) the type system can more
>>>> precisely describe what's going on in the program...
>>>>
>>>> Meaning that when you are type checking, it is a much more precise test
>>>> of the program's internal consistency, leading to more robustness.
>>>>
>>>> i have been reading the Idris book, would be interested whether anyone
>>>> has any comparisons on using coding dependently typed languages vs Elm or
>>>> whatever.
>>>>
>>>> It must become overkill eventually! But I like how Idris feels so far,
>>>> and I like the extra inference features you get from the extra type
>>>> precision too...
>>>>
>>>> Zachary Kessin <zkes...@gmail.com> schrieb am Mi., 25. Mai 2016 04:13:
>>>>
>>>>> A major issue is the "Maybe". In Java a type can be null so you always
>>>>> have to check for that. WHile in Elm there is difference between "Maybe
>>>>> User" and "User". So the type system will prevent any form of null pointer
>>>>> exception.
>>>>>
>>>>> Zach
>>>>> ᐧ
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 10:06 PM, Joey Eremondi <
>>>>> joey.eremo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Are you interested in the actual type checking algorithms, or just
>>>>>> the type systems?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Big differences of the type systems:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> * Elm has tagged union types, meaning that you can make a value that
>>>>>> many have one of many types, and pattern match on its possible variants.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> * Elm has type inference, Java does not. When you declare a variable
>>>>>> in Java, you need to know what type it is. There's no such need in Elm.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> * Elm has first-class functions, so variables can have type a -> b,
>>>>>> and you can build arbitrarily complicated types using function types, put
>>>>>> them in tuples, etc.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> * Java has classes, subtyping, inheritance, etc. Elm doesn't have
>>>>>> that, because subtyping gets in the way of inference, and because it's 
>>>>>> not
>>>>>> nearly as necessary when you don't have mutable data.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There are many other differences between the languages, but they're
>>>>>> not necessarily differences in the type system. For example, Java has
>>>>>> mutable variables and Elm does not, but there are strongly typed 
>>>>>> functional
>>>>>> languages, like ML, which have mutable variables.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As for the actual typechecking algorithms, Elm uses something like 
>>>>>> Algorithm
>>>>>> W
>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindley%E2%80%93Milner_type_system#Algorithm_W>,
>>>>>> but a more advanced, constraint-based version which helps with speed and
>>>>>> can actually accept a few more programs.
>>>>>>  Typechecking is based on unification.
>>>>>> I can't speak too much about Java, but I imagine they're using
>>>>>> something like abstract interpretation to typecheck.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 10:49 AM, John Orford <john.orf...@gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Can someone /wittily/ sum up the experience of type checking in Java
>>>>>>> vs something pure like Elm?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I feel purity, preciseness and descriptiveness is the main
>>>>>>> difference somehow...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Java is too long in the distant past for me, but it's something I
>>>>>>> love about Elm and never really cared for in languages like Java etc.
>>>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Zach Kessin
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>>>
>>>
>>>
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