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Their FAQ is an eminently reasonable breakdown of their choices:

https://github.com/roc-lang/roc/blob/main/FAQ.md

I don't fully agree with all of the reasoning, but it's a reasonable position to stake.

Yes, it was exceptionally well written and argued! Did you find any of the arguments faulty, or lacking counterweight? Or do you just weigh some drawbacks less harshly so you want some of the features they decided against?

I pretty much only really disagree about HKP. Not specifically because I want monads, but having used C# for 20 years now, I feel it every time I try to create reusable abstractions, and so much of the ecosystem would be simplified had HKP been available. I don't see any issue with not having a monad in the std lib and having a Roc sub-community create their own extension library.

I do suspect there's a way to solve the issues they raise with currying, but haven't thought about it enough to be sure.

The only other complaint I have that isn't addressed in the FAQ is the choice to use '\' to start a lambda. I've never liked that syntax anytime I've seen it. '->' as a infix operator is sufficient to disambiguate, so given all of the other good ergonomic choices they've made, that just kinda sticks in my craw.

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