> I feel like I shouldn't feel ashamed when saying this, but here: mutation, imperative code & side-effect are kinda nice, and very much needed for a straightforward interop with e.g. existing JS/Obj-C/Java (hint hint) code.

Similar feelings...OCaml has mutability built in but you don't need it often. You can isolate its use to small areas of your code to keep it under control. If you went the Haskell route getting JS developers to adopt would be even harder.

> Also, speaking of native compilation: we're not reference counting but _some_ predictability when working with UI code is needed.

So the GC is well behaved with Reason scripts? I'm curious if you could use it for games.

Thanks for the insights. I haven't heard of Reason much to be honest which is a shame. I used OCaml as my main language for several years and going back to Java, Python and JavaScript was pretty painful!