Erik Wendel at ReactJS Day 2017

In times where a jungle of JavaScript frameworks wants to solve every conceivable problem in web app development, creating headaches and javascript fatigue in the process, Elm offers a different approach. Elm is a functional programming language that you can use instead of JavaScript — or alongside it. Elm builds on the concepts of virtual dom and unidirectional data flow popularized by React and Redux, but with a sound typesystem, built-in immutability, and an amazing compiler that catches errors before you even run your code. Simply put, Elm is a great language that will make your backend team jealous. In this talk you'll see how Elm works and learn how to use it to build a web app. I will emphasize the advantages and disadvantages it brings compared to React with Redux (my current JS favourite). This talk is not aimed at experienced functional programmers coming from languages such as Haskell, but rather JavaScript developers seeking a more functional approach in their daily work. It serves both as a introduction to Elm and typed, ML-style functional programming.Show more