Add to Chrome
Add to Edge
Add to Firefox
Add to Opera
Add to Brave
Add to SafariWhen comparing Flow vs Reason ML, the Slant community recommends Reason ML for most people. In the question“What are the best solutions to "The JavaScript Problem"?” Reason ML is ranked 7th while Flow is ranked 32nd.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Checks to see if you check for Nulls
Because getting those exceptions is just not fun and very pervasive.
Pro Versioned type definitions
Pro There is support in many code editors via the extension
For example, there is good support through the extension in Visual Studio Code, which is a good editor for TypeScript, which is a competitor to Flow.
Pro Babel extension for strip of type annotations
Thanks to the Babel extension for the output, there is minimally modified code that is understandable to the author.
Pro Statical analysing of JavaScript code
Statical analysing of JavaScript code without pre-making any changes to it. But supported annotation types by extending the syntax of the language.
Pro Uses the excellent Bucklescript Ocaml to Javascript transpiler
Pro Superior type inference
Ocaml type inference is so smart that you never have to repeat yourself and keep code very clean, type errors also are very pleasant.
Pro Aims to make the transition from Javascript easier
Despite being a completely different language Javascript programmer will find that the syntax of ReasonML has many familiarities with Javascript.
Pro Uses established compiler technology from Ocaml with a tweaked syntax that leans more towards Javascript
Pro Removes JavaScript "bad parts" but sticks to it's design philosophy
unlike other js-targetting languages that are thought as a way to have a language that pleases community X run in a browser, reason is really designed with JavaScript community in mind. it removes the bad parts but keeps its syntax and its best design principles (from Scheme): simplicity, minimalism, and functions as building block.
Pro Immutability with escape hatches
reason includes true immutability, but it has escape hatches to let you use mutations in exceptional cases.
Pro Compiles to JavaScript or assembly (ocaml)
The same reasonml code can compile to js (eg. run on browsers or node.js, use any lib in npm), or compile to assembly thru ocaml (unless of course you load js externals), running on any device, with C-comparable (or better) performance.
Pro JSX syntax natively supported
Reason was created by the creator of react, for developers already using JSX to template web or native UIs this results very familiar.
Cons
Con Weak base type definitions even for popular JavaScript libraries
For example, there are definitions for Gulp, React.
Con A standard async syntax is pending
Async syntax is not standard across native/js projects and in both cases a bit awkward for non-ocaml devs. Currently this is reasonml most voted issue in their GitHub repo so hopefully, there's news soon.
Con Ecosystem is a mess
A wonderful language, but a user is required to use multiple different package managers for many things (esy, bsb, npm). Some standard templates from bsb (e.g. react-starter) are not installable out of the box.
