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Comment by casmclas | Hacker News Reader

I've tried several times to use Purescript to target web browsers. I got frustrated by Bower - it's especially hard to start a new project using tools that say "don't use me, I'm deprecated". There was a huge amount of fairly sloppy javascript boundary code. And - it turns out - I like laziness.I dunno, I wish I could run ghc code efficiently in a web browser. But even though I can't, I much prefer to run ghc code inefficiently in a web browser than run a language intended to facilitate binding to javascript's sloppy semantics.

When I tried using ps-concur or some other ps gui libraries, I didn't feel inclined to keep progressing. When I learnt reflex with ghcjs, I built stuff, and I kept finding new things I wanted to build.

The best way for a Haskell to target browsers at the moment is via ghcjs. Hopefully one day it'll be with a ghc-to-wasm compiler.

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I think Bower was just a "good enough" solution when Purescript was initially implemented. Afaik, people are moving away from it in favor of spago [0] or psc-package [1].

JS' semantics are pretty much opaque when staying in Purescript. Of course all bets are off when using the FFI, but then again the same goes for GHCJS.

One major thing in favor of GHCJS is the ability to share code between backend and frontend, but that's not a concern when e.g. the backend is written in another language anyway.

EDIT: Also, Purescript on the backend (targeting node or native code) is slowly becoming a thing as well, as this is what this submission is about :)

[0] https://github.com/spacchetti/spago

[1] https://github.com/purescript/psc-package

> but that's not a concern when e.g. the backend is written in another language anyway.

well, for anyone who's been in this situation, it should be a concern, since it's incredibly easy to get out of sync between backend and frontend (e.g. model, validation, etc.).

Ideally we could all code in preferred-language; target all major platforms using a single/universal UI framework, and call it a day...but reality is messier than that, we're often forced to code apps in multiple languages, multiple UI frameworks (if targeting native iOS + Android, and browser/PWA), and hope it all comes together such that the house of cards stays standing through language/framework/platform upgrades.

I agree, but what I meant is that if you're forced to use a language other than Haskell on the backend, than there's no advantage in choosing GHCJS over Purescript in terms of code sharing.

You don't have to use Bower. I've been writing PureScript for a good while now, and I've never used Bower directly.

https://github.com/spacchetti/spago

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