Stream: ideas

Topic: lang_comparison_table.md

jan kili (Aug 02 2022 at 14:40):

To smooth/flatten the Roc learning curve, what do you you think about supplementary documentation containing a comparison table for how various simple Roc expressions would be written in other programming languages? (I'm afk right now, so I can't effectively type up examples)

Anton (Aug 02 2022 at 15:21):

Absolutely :100:
Somebody did a comparison for Elm/Roc/Haskell a long time ago, perhaps someone remembers who made that.
It would be nice to expand that with python etc.

jan kili (Aug 02 2022 at 15:25):

I guess a big decision would be which languages we want to compare against...
How about:
C Clojure Elm Haskell Lua Python Rust TypeScript?
(2 FPs, 2 scripts, 2 systems, 2 webs)

Brendan Hansknecht (Aug 02 2022 at 15:30):

That would get really noisy

Brendan Hansknecht (Aug 02 2022 at 15:30):

Probably want direct 1v1 comparison docs for a few languages of interest. Kinda like what we have with Elm already?

Brendan Hansknecht (Aug 02 2022 at 15:30):

Though expanded with a table of statements for reference.

Brendan Hansknecht (Aug 02 2022 at 15:31):

Or in some languages maybe just the table of statements if we don't want to write up a full tutorial

jan kili (Aug 02 2022 at 15:36):

I feel like it would be instructive to see (in one place) a broader view of where Roc draw inspiration from, with some syntax being more systems-y and some being more FP-y.

jan kili (Aug 02 2022 at 15:36):

However, I agree that a 9-column table is noisy.

jan kili (Aug 02 2022 at 15:37):

Maybe if that list of 8 above can be gracefully culled to 3ish, maybe such a broad view is more viable.

jan kili (Aug 02 2022 at 15:38):

However, I agree that it would be nice to have a standalone doc for each of the above 8, with at least just a table like this one: https://github.com/rtfeldman/roc/blob/trunk/TUTORIAL.md#operator-desugaring-table (except where the two columns are Roc and LangX.

jan kili (Aug 02 2022 at 15:41):

Perhaps something like
language_comparisons/Roc_vs_C.md
language_comparisons/Roc_vs_Clojure.md
...
language_comparisons/Roc_vs_TypeScript.md

jan kili (Aug 02 2022 at 15:42):

(...and then perhaps all documentation-y .md files should be moved into a docs/-like top-level directory? That can be a later discussion.)

Martin Stewart (Aug 02 2022 at 20:27):

Anton said:

Absolutely :100:
Somebody did a comparison for Elm/Roc/Haskell a long time ago, perhaps someone remembers who made that.
It would be nice to expand that with python etc.

I believe that would be @Mario

Martin Stewart (Aug 02 2022 at 20:37):

Here it is https://fptransforms.netlify.app/transformations.html (source https://github.com/supermario/fptransforms)

Anton (Aug 03 2022 at 08:05):

Thanks @Martin Stewart :)

Last updated: Jun 16 2026 at 16:19 UTC