Elm vs PureScript

Overview

PureScript

Stacks88

Followers86

Votes18

GitHub Stars8.8K

Forks569

Elm

Stacks758

Followers744

Votes319

Elm vs PureScript: What are the differences?

Introduction:

When comparing Elm and PureScript, two functional programming languages that compile to JavaScript, there are certain key differences that developers should be aware of before choosing one over the other.

Type System: Elm comes with a simpler and more restrictive type system compared to PureScript. Elm's type system is designed to be beginner-friendly, providing strong guarantees against runtime errors. On the other hand, PureScript offers a more expressive type system with features like higher-kinded polymorphism and type classes, making it more powerful but also potentially more complex for newcomers.
Interoperability: PureScript provides better interoperability with existing JavaScript code due to its ability to seamlessly call JavaScript functions and use JavaScript libraries. Elm, on the other hand, has a more restricted approach to JavaScript interop, limiting direct interaction with JavaScript in favor of a more controlled environment.
Bundle Size: Elm focuses on simplicity and ease of use, which results in smaller bundle sizes compared to PureScript. Elm's compiler aggressively optimizes output code, resulting in efficient and compact JavaScript files. PureScript, while providing more language features and flexibility, can lead to larger bundle sizes if not carefully managed.
Learning Curve: Elm is known for its gentle learning curve, with a strong focus on simplicity and guided learning materials. PureScript, with its more advanced type system and features, can have a steeper learning curve, especially for developers new to functional programming concepts.
Ecosystem and Tooling: PureScript has a more mature ecosystem and a larger number of libraries available, thanks to its longer presence in the functional programming community. Elm, being more opinionated and tightly controlled, has a smaller ecosystem but a consistent and vetted set of tools and packages.
Community Support: Elm has a strong and active community known for its helpfulness and focus on beginner-friendly resources. PureScript, while also having a supportive community, may require more self-reliance and deeper understanding of functional programming principles to fully leverage the available resources.

In Summary, Elm emphasizes simplicity and safety, while PureScript offers more expressiveness and flexibility, catering to different preferences and requirements in functional programming projects.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Detailed Comparison

PureScript	Elm
A small strongly typed programming language with expressive types that compiles to JavaScript, written in and inspired by Haskell.	Writing HTML apps is super easy with elm-lang/html. Not only does it render extremely fast, it also quietly guides you towards well-architected code.
-	No Runtime Exceptions; Fearless refactoring; Understand anyone's code; Fast and friendly feedback; Enforced Semantic Versioning; Small Assets
Statistics
GitHub Stars 8.8K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 569	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 88	Stacks 758
Followers 86	Followers 744
Votes 18	Votes 319
Pros & Cons
Pros 6 Purely functional 4 Great FFI to JavaScript 2 Alternate backends 2 The best type system 1 Libraries Cons 1 Not so fancy error reporting 1 Have Some Bugs 1 No JSX/Template	Pros 45 Code stays clean 44 Great type system 40 No Runtime Exceptions 33 Fun 28 Easy to understand Cons 3 No typeclasses -> repitition (i.e. map has 130versions) 2 JS interoperability a bit more involved 2 JS interop can not be async 1 More code is required 1 Main developer enforces "the correct" style hard

What are some alternatives to PureScript, Elm?

Meteor

A Meteor application is a mix of JavaScript that runs inside a client web browser, JavaScript that runs on the Meteor server inside a Node.js container, and all the supporting HTML fragments, CSS rules, and static assets.

Bower

Bower is a package manager for the web. It offers a generic, unopinionated solution to the problem of front-end package management, while exposing the package dependency model via an API that can be consumed by a more opinionated build stack. There are no system wide dependencies, no dependencies are shared between different apps, and the dependency tree is flat.

Julia

Julia is a high-level, high-performance dynamic programming language for technical computing, with syntax that is familiar to users of other technical computing environments. It provides a sophisticated compiler, distributed parallel execution, numerical accuracy, and an extensive mathematical function library.

Racket

It is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm programming language based on the Scheme dialect of Lisp. It is designed to be a platform for programming language design and implementation. It is also used for scripting, computer science education, and research.

Composer

It is a tool for dependency management in PHP. It allows you to declare the libraries your project depends on and it will manage (install/update) them for you.

pnpm

It uses hard links and symlinks to save one version of a module only ever once on a disk. When using npm or Yarn for example, if you have 100 projects using the same version of lodash, you will have 100 copies of lodash on disk. With pnpm, lodash will be saved in a single place on the disk and a hard link will put it into the node_modules where it should be installed.

Bun

Develop, test, run, and bundle JavaScript & TypeScript projects—all with Bun. Bun is an all-in-one JavaScript runtime & toolkit designed for speed, complete with a bundler, test runner, and Node.js-compatible package manager.

Homebrew

Homebrew installs the stuff you need that Apple didn’t. Homebrew installs packages to their own directory and then symlinks their files into /usr/local.

fpm

It helps you build packages quickly and easily (Packages like RPM and DEB formats).

SDKMAN

It provides a convenient way to install, switch, list and remove candidates. Using it, you can now manage parallel versions of multiple SDKs easily on any Unix-like operating system.

Related Comparisons

Elm vs PureScript: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Type System: Elm comes with a simpler and more restrictive type system compared to PureScript. Elm's type system is designed to be beginner-friendly, providing strong guarantees against runtime errors. On the other hand, PureScript offers a more expressive type system with features like higher-kinded polymorphism and type classes, making it more powerful but also potentially more complex for newcomers.
Interoperability: PureScript provides better interoperability with existing JavaScript code due to its ability to seamlessly call JavaScript functions and use JavaScript libraries. Elm, on the other hand, has a more restricted approach to JavaScript interop, limiting direct interaction with JavaScript in favor of a more controlled environment.
Bundle Size: Elm focuses on simplicity and ease of use, which results in smaller bundle sizes compared to PureScript. Elm's compiler aggressively optimizes output code, resulting in efficient and compact JavaScript files. PureScript, while providing more language features and flexibility, can lead to larger bundle sizes if not carefully managed.
Learning Curve: Elm is known for its gentle learning curve, with a strong focus on simplicity and guided learning materials. PureScript, with its more advanced type system and features, can have a steeper learning curve, especially for developers new to functional programming concepts.
Ecosystem and Tooling: PureScript has a more mature ecosystem and a larger number of libraries available, thanks to its longer presence in the functional programming community. Elm, being more opinionated and tightly controlled, has a smaller ecosystem but a consistent and vetted set of tools and packages.
Community Support: Elm has a strong and active community known for its helpfulness and focus on beginner-friendly resources. PureScript, while also having a supportive community, may require more self-reliance and deeper understanding of functional programming principles to fully leverage the available resources.

In Summary, Elm emphasizes simplicity and safety, while PureScript offers more expressiveness and flexibility, catering to different preferences and requirements in functional programming projects.

Elm vs PureScript

Overview