Reason: Better syntax for js externals

[aaronshaf]

Instead of:

[@bs.module] external foo: string => string = "bar";

I propose:

[@bs.module] external bar as foo: string => string;

That "bar" in the first is super confusing for beginners. Not intuitive.

[jordwalke]

Good idea. That particular proposal would require a concrete syntax change in reason in addition to requiring a BuckleScript ppx change. The following would only require a BuckleScript ppx change.

let foo: string => string = [%require "bar"];

Maybe that's just as intuitive?

[aaronshaf]

IMO, that last = is misleading, unfortunately. It looks like an assignment for the second string.

Update: Nevermind.

[aaronshaf]

Per JustGate's tweet, another suggestion:

[@bs.module] external foo: string => string from "bar";

Essentially replacing the = at the end with a from

[jordwalke]

But you don’t have a similar response to this
“let x: string => string = something”

Thats just standard type annotations syntax.

[justgage]

I was actually thinking import foo: string => string from "bar"; Or maybe importJs foo: string => string from "bar"; Just make it as es6 as possible.

[justgage]

I do really like @jordwalke's syntax as well though, maybe even better 👍. It's not far off CommonJS syntax:

var foo = require('lodash');

Some options:

let foo: string => string = [%jsModule "bar"];
let foo: string => string = [%import "bar"];
let foo: string => string = [%require "bar"];

I think the ability to "multicursor" a JS file to a Reason file easily is important (naturally you'd have to write the type annotations)