Instead of jumping right into drawing more “ideal worlds”, I was struck by a few thoughts:
Sean McDirmid was skeptical of my diagnosis of the key hard parts of Reflex
You mentioned dogfooding so I wondered what the best approximation of it was to build something better
I wanted to get a better sense of the framework before building abstractions on top of it
So my idea was to try and set up a better Haskell/Reflex experience, film myself building things, and then write down complaints. I wasn’t able to get a better experience (crazy!) so I went ahead and made a list of key complaints and some next step ideas…
maybe livestream it somehow to encourage me to actually do it?
think more precisely abstractlbetter distinguish my “vision” from exsiting Haskell alternatives (lamdu, luna, isomorf)
the idea of never being able to “delete” anything, nor stop it from running
the idea of hashed expressions, particularly with scope
exploring which concepts we can move from the language compiler to the editor (no free variables, type inference is just local if not just a type “suggestion”)
Next steps
p4 next steps
read the first 6 chapters of TaPL
draw out what a better time would look like
schedule JE podcast
notes from JE
they have generators in JS so maybe we have laziness and also weak refs maybe
TODO ask ryan trinkle
building a langauge is a lot but a JS framework is great
people would immediately download and play with it
interpreting haskell seems like a lot of work
starting from the top (the UI like aprt.us) is good
could start from a DSL for the streams –> maybe a macro thing for JS or a little lang with syntax and a parser with embedded JS
he’s skeptical of the Xerox parc advice to build one’s own infrastructure to build what you want on top
imagining UI is a pain but implementing is weeks or months of work, but a DSL can give you great sense of the UI and so much easier to build
the risks with this is that you’ll go with things that are good on paper but hard to visualize
tons of DSL tools: spoofax, MPS, look into this for JS
strongly recommends typescript
there’s a lot of work on “functional typescript” and some even have typeclasses!
subtext in the past has been “parametric in my mind”, living in multiple places in the design space
His work
minimum viable paradigm
maybe someone will steal it if it’s communicated well enough
maybe people would join as contributors and could work on parts
classically, research is stealing idea – not working with you
people who cite me is for “inspiration” and I don’t get cited in actual research yet because they are not solid enough –> like how Eve inspired Apple
ultimate goal is to have an impact and what’s the best way of doing that?
I’ve always avoided making design commitments but now it feels good to settle down
think on a time to do a work retreat with JE, maybe Sarah will come