

Getting Started with Elm - corysama
http://pragmaticstudio.com/blog/2014/12/19/getting-started-with-elm

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wyclif
Whoa, Elm is a language? And here all along I thought it was an MUA:
[http://www.instinct.org/elm/](http://www.instinct.org/elm/)

~~~
cjensen
Every time I read an article on HN about Elm, I go through a moment of
confusion. Elm wasn't just some random piece of rarely-used free software
where it makes sense to re-use the name. It was an extremely popular mail
program. If you're reading HN, you are the kind of person who 20 years ago
would have used or at least tried Elm.

It's a bad idea to re-use a name for a product when the prior product targeted
essentially the same users.

~~~
corysama
A very large percentage of the HN population has been using computers for less
than 15 years. The creator of Elm is a very smart cookie. But, there's a good
chance he has never heard of the Elm mail client. I've got bad news for ya:
We're old.

~~~
ghshephard
But elm isn't particularly old - as recently as 1999, when I started doing IT
at Loudcloud, there were a bunch of users who still wanted to use elm as their
primary email client.

It's like naming something "eudora"

~~~
freehunter
1999 was 16 years ago. The last release of Elm (the mail client) was 10 years
ago. I started using the Internet back when AOL was still charging an hourly
(rather than monthly) fee, and if I've ever heard of Elm (the mail client), it
wasn't enough to be able to remember it today.

So yes, Elm (the mail client) is particularly old.

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rtfeldman
Thanks for the detailed writeup! I've done a lot with the Reactjs-esque elm-
html, but have yet to try out the graphics libraries.

This was a nice introduction to that part of the ecosystem, and I definitely
plan to revisit this post when I get around to taking Elm's graphical
capabilities for a spin.

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jbeja
I heard sometime ago that given that Elm is build around FRP, is not very good
for making widgets or reusable and nested components. Why would this be the
case?

~~~
stygianguest
Having used Elm a little, the aim certainly is completely opposite to that.
Moreover, Elm is mostly pure even in its handling of the reactive paradigm.
That alone should make it more composable than most other languages. Should,
because as far as I know it hasn't been proven just yet.

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harrygold
I scanned the headlines on Hacker News and thought this said "Getting Started
with Elf" :P

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deadfoxygrandpa
In it, voted 5

