Grain: A strongly-typed functional programming language for the modern web
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Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderThe main page doesn't do a great job of showing what's interesting about Grain vs. JavaScript. The only hint is this: "No runtime exceptions, ever. Every bit of Grain you write is thoroughly sifted for type errors, with no need for any type annotations." Maybe show some examples of errors Grain would catch that JavaScript wouldn't, like Elm does: http://elm-lang.org/
>Grain aims to modernize innovative features from functional and academic programming languages and bring them to the masses. What are these features? This could be things like "pattern matching and sum types", or it could be things like "effect systems and dependent types". Personally I don't think you can reasonably call pattern matching an "innovative feature" from an "academic programming language", but as far as I can tell that's what they mean...
Four clicks in and not a single example of the language.
It’s “for the web” but where does one find a web example? Client? Server? ELM equivalent perhaps (a guess)? None of that on the landing page.
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 332
- Total comments
- 238
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-07-30 | Grain: A strongly-typed functional programming language for the modern webFirst breakout · Best thread | bpierre | 259 | 153 |
| 2020-07-08 | Grain: A Modern Language for the Web | randtrain34 | 2 | 0 |
| 2020-07-10 | Grain: Functional Typed Language for the Web | montogeek | 4 | 2 |
| 2021-03-11 | Grain: A strongly-typed functional programming language for the modern web | pramodbiligiri | 2 | 0 |
| 2021-04-24 | Grain: A strongly-typed functional programming language for the modern webHall induction · Latest 20+ point return | pjmlp | 60 | 80 |
| 2023-09-21 | Grain: A strongly-typed functional programming language for the modern web | gorenb | 5 | 3 |