Beyond JavaScript: Building Stable Web Applications

JavaScript is the dominant language in web application development, and allows for the creation of powerful and cross-platform applications. However, as a dynamically typed language with a constantly expanding array of features and a knack for concealing errors, JavaScript is often hard to maintain in large applications. In this paper I explore two programming languages, Elm and Reason, that provide an alternative to JavaScript for writing web applications. Both benefit from advanced type systems and functional design paradigms that seek to reduce bugs and improve code quality. The two languages embrace a largely similar approach to web application design, but each has advantages and disadvantages in terms of language design, framework design, usefulness of errors, and available tooling and documentation. I created the same simple web application using both languages, and here I compare my experience with each throughout the development process.