> Neither Evan, nor the lead-developer of the company, feel that typeclasses, or something like it, needs to be in the language right now.
Need is not the word I'd use. IIRC (from some Github issue I saw recently) Evan has said they are adopting a "wait and see approach" on typeclasses and/or other type system extensions. Given how young Elm is, I see this as a careful and considered approach to its continued development, rather than a statement that its creators consider it to be finished and complete as it is at this time.
I've jumped ship on things for far less than a "need", just because there was something better. I expect that a lot of people use Elm despite any perceived deficiencies because they think it's still better than the alternatives for their application(s).
Here's how I view our conversation thus far. I said "Evan doesn't feel the need to add typeclasses right now." You said "He is thinking about maybe adding it in the future." Then I said "I know, that's why I ended my sentence with -- right now --" and then you said "what are you talking about? I'm not saying Elm is bad!"
> A language can be better than its competitors/alternatives while still having room to improve.
I agree with you is all I'm saying. I never tried to imply otherwise. All I said is that there is no reason to think that Elm has to have typeclasses right now to be useful, as some others seem to suggest.
Need is not the word I'd use. IIRC (from some Github issue I saw recently) Evan has said they are adopting a "wait and see approach" on typeclasses and/or other type system extensions. Given how young Elm is, I see this as a careful and considered approach to its continued development, rather than a statement that its creators consider it to be finished and complete as it is at this time.
I've jumped ship on things for far less than a "need", just because there was something better. I expect that a lot of people use Elm despite any perceived deficiencies because they think it's still better than the alternatives for their application(s).