PureScript
Gregor Riegler
Lambdaheads Vienna -- May 13, 2015
PureScript
- Compiles to JavaScript
- to use in your browser
- to use on Node.js
⇒ write Web Applications!
PureScript
Statically typed and similar to Haskell
- Another language to target JavaScript as
- TypeScript
- Dart
- CoffeeScript
- ... and others
PureScript Motivation
Solutions at the time included various attempts to compile Haskell to JavaScript while preserving its semantics (Fay, Haste, GHCJS), but I was interested to see how successful I could be by approaching the problem from the other side - attempting to keep the semantics of JavaScript, while enjoying the syntax and type system of a language like Haskell. -- Phil Freeman
PureScript ?= Haskell
In the case of purescript, it really does seem to be turning into a gateway drug to get folks into the Haskell community, much the way Scala used to be (and still is to a lesser extent), but closer in spirit.
PureScript /= Haskell
- Strict evaluation → no "lazyness"
- Fine-grained "IO" monad called the "Eff" monad
- Literal syntax for arrays instead of lists
- "Row types" - Records similar to JavaScript records
- Foreign Function Interface for JavaScript interoperation
- ... and some others in the wiki
Try PureScript
Install tools
- psc - PureScript compiler
- cabal install purescript
- npm - Node Package Manager
- grunt
- Build Automation Tool
- npm install -g grunt-cli
- bower - for PureScript dependencies
- npm install -g bower
Useful resources
- Pursuit
- Search types like Hoogle
- Bower Search
- Searching with prefix "purescript-" finds libraries
- from the command-line: "bower search purescript"
- Wiki Page Recommended Libraries
Live Demo
Learn PureScript 1
Best Learning Resource
- PureScript By Example
- can be read online, free donations
- a very thorough and yet exciting read!
- written by the PureScript creator Phil Freeman
Learn PureScript 2
Other Resources
PureScript rocks?!