Elm/compiler: Matching on negative literals results in a parser error | Hacker News Reader

Elm/compiler: Matching on negative literals results in a parser error

github.com

33 pointsluu8 comments

Of course this message comes off as rude. Some open source leaders have immense skill in being nice. Dan Ambramov and Matz (Ruby community's motto: Matz Is Nice And So We Are Nice) are positive examples of a high order.

I might have given up on learning FP without Evan's work on Elm. The Elm community when it was lively oozed niceness, and much of it was thanks to Evan setting a positive example. Yes there were flaws in Elm's leadership, even fatal flaws, but why revisit a message like this?

Maybe it's just an unfortunate example of how, with one message, betraying one's frustration can damage a reputation.

Open source work is done for free (if not, you're doing it wrong) in a world without UBI by hypertechy weirdos. "At 20,000 feet, you can't afford ~morality~ niceness." I'm content to leave niceness to corporate mouthpieces. Having a living open source ecosystem is enough.

> Why revisit

Because of the thread yesterday

I'll repost my response to this from the last time it got brought up. I talk favorably about Elm all the time so I hope this doesn't come off as defensive but I really think Evan was more tone deaf than rude in this case.

""" I feel like this exchange is this skit writ small...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sngRrkQayDA. Evan meant a congenial "why are you doing this" as in like..honestly why do they match negative literals? Everyone took it as an accusatory statement that implied "you moron, why would you do such a thing?" which I at first took it that way too so I can totally understand! But on reflection I think he wouldn't react that way and I believe he was just misinterpreted. And by fake examples he meant contrived examples. He wasn't accusing them of acting in bad faith I don't think. """

It doesn't really matter why someone wants to match a negative literal. Its unexpected behavior and should either be documented as part of the language design, or fixed because its a bug.

Maybe. Probably! But he never followed up to clarify or respond to real use cases.

So what if Elm hasn’t seen an update since 2019. It is stable and a change of pace from the churn and anyway…

Oh.

Elm might not be dead, but it is certainly a zombie at this point.

Something I started doing recently when evaluating dependencies, libraries, or even companies/jobs is checking out the GitHub etiquette, discourse, and culture.

It feels good using products from developers you trust and respect and know will help you if you need to make patches or contribute features upstream in a positive manner.

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