Writing ReasonML Bindings for JavaScript APIs

There is no escaping the mapping. It doesn't matter if it is Reason or PureScript, Elm, or Fable - you have to parse the incoming data into a static type if you want to enjoy the benefits of types. The good thing is that you can build the rest of your system with a firm guarantee on the shape and structure of the data. No null checks, no missing keys. If you are careful with your parsing you can raise exceptions or return None if the incoming data is not well-formed (missing keys or even extra keys).

Reason/BuckleScript when run on a Javascript runtime also has a `Js.t` type which is basically the Javascript object. You do have to define the shape of it similar to how you'd define a record type, but you don't need to convert it into a native record. JS arrays are also natively supported - it maps 1:1 to BuckleScript's array. I like to convert arrays into lists since they are better suited for value-based programming (pattern-matching over [head, ...tail] inside recursive functions).

And if you create your types in a way that invalid states are impossible, you've just reduced the cognitive load needed to work on the system for the rest of its life by an order of magnitude. Here are some resources on this wonderful programming technique:

- https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/designing-with-types...

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcgmSRJHu_8

- https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/ideology

- https://blog.janestreet.com/effective-ml-revisited/

And records. You would typically define a record type to do the heavy lifting in, and do some lightweight conversions to and from JS. Here's an example:

    [@bs.deriving jsConverter]
    type person = {name: string, age: int};
    
    let bob = {name: "Bob", age: 33};
    let olderBob = {...bob, age: bob.age + 1};
    let () = Js.log(personToJs(olderBob));