[elm-discuss] Is Elm going stale?

[LondonTokyo]

so....

Its now been a year since the last Elm release, and there has been no
updates in Github for 3 months, as far as I can see. Last blog update was
about Google Summer of code.

Seems to me that Elm is danger of becoming abandoned, and is going stale.
It certainly does not seem like it is something worth investing any time
on, nor does it seem safe to write any application in Elm anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I love Elm, I think it solves some great problems
elegantly. But where is it heading? What's the roadmap? Why are there no /
little communication / publication from the maintainer(s)?

Or did I miss something?

Thoughts?

H

[Brian Hicks]

There are a lot of answers to that question
here: https://github.com/elm-lang/projects/blob/master/roadmap.md

Even if the language were not being actively developed (which it is) the
community is thriving and I would hope makes the investment in using the
language worthwhile. :)

Post by LondonTokyo
so....
Its now been a year since the last Elm release, and there has been no
updates in Github for 3 months, as far as I can see. Last blog update was
about Google Summer of code.
Seems to me that Elm is danger of becoming abandoned, and is going stale.
It certainly does not seem like it is something worth investing any time
on, nor does it seem safe to write any application in Elm anymore.
Don't get me wrong, I love Elm, I think it solves some great problems
elegantly. But where is it heading? What's the roadmap? Why are there no /
little communication / publication from the maintainer(s)?
Or did I miss something?
Thoughts?
H

[Frank Bonetti]

Is the roadmap reliable though?. It states that the major focus of 0.19
will be single-page apps, and that features such as server-side rendering,
tree shaking, code splitting, and lazy loading may be introduced. However,
a status update was posted in elm-dev in July
<https://groups.google.com/d/msg/elm-dev/hO-2DBq_h-U/6QkOGOxIAAAJ> and it
made no mention of single-page apps. The next release seems to be focused
on improving the implementation of Core functions. I asked Evan if the
stated priorities of 0.19 had changed
<https://groups.google.com/d/msg/elm-dev/hO-2DBq_h-U/4QfToE7IFAAJ> but
didn't get a response. Based on the roadmap you would think that 0.19 would
introduce some major new features but it's shaping up to be more of an
incremental release. That's fine with me personally (I'm don't necessarily
need stuff like code splitting), but it would be nice if the roadmap was
updated to reflect those changes in direction.

Post by Brian Hicks
https://github.com/elm-lang/projects/blob/master/roadmap.md
Even if the language were not being actively developed (which it is) the
community is thriving and I would hope makes the investment in using the
language worthwhile. :)

Post by LondonTokyo
so....
Its now been a year since the last Elm release, and there has been no
updates in Github for 3 months, as far as I can see. Last blog update was
about Google Summer of code.
Seems to me that Elm is danger of becoming abandoned, and is going stale.
It certainly does not seem like it is something worth investing any time
on, nor does it seem safe to write any application in Elm anymore.
Don't get me wrong, I love Elm, I think it solves some great problems
elegantly. But where is it heading? What's the roadmap? Why are there no /
little communication / publication from the maintainer(s)?
Or did I miss something?
Thoughts?
H

[Brian Hicks]

The roadmap is still accurate. Evan talked about this at elm-conf, and we will be releasing the video with 0.19 (it goes into a lot of "why?" and mirrors the roadmap nicely.)

I can't speak to major language features, but Evan is still working on Elm full-time. The language is alive and kicking. I know it's hard to see that progress sometimes, but it's definitely happening!

Is the roadmap reliable though?. It states that the major focus of 0.19 will be single-page apps, and that features such as server-side rendering, tree shaking, code splitting, and lazy loading may be introduced. However, a status update was posted in elm-dev in July <https://groups.google.com/d/msg/elm-dev/hO-2DBq_h-U/6QkOGOxIAAAJ> and it made no mention of single-page apps. The next release seems to be focused on improving the implementation of Core functions. I asked Evan if the stated priorities of 0.19 had changed <https://groups.google.com/d/msg/elm-dev/hO-2DBq_h-U/4QfToE7IFAAJ> but didn't get a response. Based on the roadmap you would think that 0.19 would introduce some major new features but it's shaping up to be more of an incremental release. That's fine with me personally (I'm don't necessarily need stuff like code splitting), but it would be nice if the roadmap was updated to reflect those changes in direction.
There are a lot of answers to that question here: https://github.com/elm-lang/projects/blob/master/roadmap.md <https://github.com/elm-lang/projects/blob/master/roadmap.md>
Even if the language were not being actively developed (which it is) the community is thriving and I would hope makes the investment in using the language worthwhile. :)
so....
Its now been a year since the last Elm release, and there has been no updates in Github for 3 months, as far as I can see. Last blog update was about Google Summer of code.
Seems to me that Elm is danger of becoming abandoned, and is going stale. It certainly does not seem like it is something worth investing any time on, nor does it seem safe to write any application in Elm anymore.
Don't get me wrong, I love Elm, I think it solves some great problems elegantly. But where is it heading? What's the roadmap? Why are there no / little communication / publication from the maintainer(s)?
Or did I miss something?
Thoughts?
H
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[Peter Damoc]

Post by Brian Hicks
Even if the language were not being actively developed (which it is) the
community is thriving and I would hope makes the investment in using the
language worthwhile. :)

If one learns a language for some toy project is one thing.
If one evaluates a language for potential use in production code, the
requirements are very different.

Concerns about a language going stale sound to me as fitting the second
category.

[Peter Damoc]

Post by LondonTokyo
Its now been a year since the last Elm release, and there has been no
updates in Github for 3 months, as far as I can see.

Last update in the dev branch of the core was about an hour ago. The master
branch does not show the actual story of current development.

Post by LondonTokyo
Seems to me that Elm is danger of becoming abandoned, and is going stale.
It certainly does not seem like it is something worth investing any time
on, nor does it seem safe to write any application in Elm anymore.

Elm is in no danger of being abandoned because of the gigantic investment
made by NoRedInk. They have a huge Elm codebase and as long as this company
exists, Elm should be fine.

Post by LondonTokyo
But where is it heading? What's the roadmap? Why are there no / little
communication / publication from the maintainer(s)?

There is no actual roadmap and very little is know about the direction of
the language. In July 0.19 looked imminent, now I would not put money on a
bet that we will see 0.19 this year.

I think the best way to approach Elm is to consider it feature complete
now.
If what it currently offers is enough for you, use it.
If you hope to get some missing functionality, I think it is safer to chose
something else.
If you want to use it in a different domain than the one currently
supported, again... it is safer to go with something else.