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Comment by ronanyeah | Hacker News Reader

People are constantly asking for a pulse:

https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/is-elm-browser-still-mainta...

https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/request-elm-0-19-2-any-upda...

It's pretty sad. I personally believe the ecosystem would be in a much more vibrant state today, if the creator had formally abandoned the language at any point in the past, as there are many who would pick up the torch.

It is telling that several people who could once have been considered 'core team' are now building their own languages:

https://gren-lang.org/

https://www.roc-lang.org/

https://www.derw-lang.com/

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I think A) Elm is done, not dead. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." (The JS folks should take a note.) and B) the natural next step is to make Elm-to-native compilers, which is now happening.

I think a lot of programmers get warped views of PL development from over-exposure to the badlands of Javascript. There are languages (like Prolog) that grow like trees, eh?

Mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but the lack of bug fixes imo makes it definitely seem dead. I'm all for stability and sticking to a core vision/set of principles, and agree with your point about the Javascript ecosystem. But not even having small updates to fix bugs here and there doesn't exactly scream "this project is alive but done".

Personally I do believe that the core team are working on things away from the public eye, and that's fair enough in order to keep focus without having to deal with everyone giving their own opinion or criticism. I just wish there was significantly more transparency in the process, and a few bones thrown to the community in the form of fixes.

I think everyone just means something different by dead.

I personally wouldn't use the word until Evan throws in the towel, but he's clearly still onboard. For example, https://gotoaarhus.com/2023/sessions/2529/elm-on-the-backend (yesterday).

I don't think we handle these kinds of oddball cases very gracefully which is evident in basically every HN discussion about Elm. If a language gains traction, then we demand a certain shape of expectations from it, and we're not very good at walking away with just "well, it ain't for me". It's not enough for us to just say that. It's like we have to linger around and ensure everybody else washes their hands of the tool, too.

I'm pretty sure Elm is past the point where anyone who doesn't like the glacial BDFL approach doesn't use it, and those who choose to use it don't care.

Well, I have no particular insight but I heard something about a compiler-to-native code project that might be taking up core team time, or maybe Evan is just burnt out from all the static. I just wish there were fewer people crapping on the kid and more recognition of what he accomplished, and will hopefully accomplish in the future.

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