Haskell programmers like me who have gotten used to functional programming and static typing find JavaScript to be painful to use. We can’t avoid JavaScript entirely – there are some useful JS libraries out there in the world – however for actual app development we can continue using safer programming languages (see below) via either a JS-transpiler or a Wasm-compiler.
| Language | Toolkits | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Haskell | GHCJS; Reflex-FRP; Obelisk | Developed by a small consultancy (Obsidian Systems) with uncertain future; also see Tweag’s Asterius |
| F# / .NET | Blazor | Can expect Microsoft’s investment to provide it a solid future. |
| Rust 1 | Yew 2 , Leptos | Has an actively evolving wasm story; needs further exploration |
Blog posts on #nojs/main
Related
- PureScript generally relies on NodeJS toolchain being peppered in the project repo, but purs-nix aims to provide a “No JavaScript” development environment using Nix.
- htmlx: https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/ud2ii9/haskell_htmx_hyperscript/
Quoting Michael Snoyman, however, “Rust is not a functional programming language, it’s imperative; […] Rust does adhere to many of the tenets of functional programming; […] In many cases, you can easily, naturally, and idiomatically write Rust in a functional style” https://www.fpcomplete.com/blog/2018/10/is-rust-functional/
via https://github.com/yewstack/yew-trunk-minimal-template for JS-less dev tools.