PureScript
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 77 of 163 programming languages by recommenders
Haskell-style typed language compiling to JavaScript, praised for row polymorphism and expressiveness. Critics note it is tied to the JavaScript runtime and that its ecosystem can be thin.
Haskell-style typed language compiling to JavaScript, praised for row polymorphism and expressiveness. Critics note it is tied to the JavaScript runtime and that its ecosystem can be thin.
16 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 15
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 94%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 15 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 15 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Row polymorphism
“It's orders of magnitude better than Elm and even improves upon Haskell in some meaningful ways (row polymorphism).”
Comment from 9 Jan 2026 in “What Happened to WebAssembly” “Even by default you get more power than i.e. vanilla Haskell, with row-types.”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “Why don't you use dependent types?” “statically typed languages that support row polymorphism a la PureScript”
Comment from 16 Mar 2026 in “Type systems are leaky abstractions: the case of Map.take!/2” - Comment from 12 Sep 2026 in “A few good ideas in programming languages”
More expressive than Haskell or Elm
“If you're looking for something approaching Haskell's expressiveness but with fewer of these issues, check out PureScript.”
Comment from 21 May 2026 in “Haskell Foundation 2026 Update” “It's orders of magnitude better than Elm and even improves upon Haskell in some meaningful ways (row polymorphism).”
Comment from 9 Jan 2026 in “What Happened to WebAssembly” “Even by default you get more power than i.e. vanilla Haskell, with row-types.”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “Why don't you use dependent types?” Rich type system with ADTs
“statically typed languages that support row polymorphism a la PureScript”
Comment from 16 Mar 2026 in “Type systems are leaky abstractions: the case of Map.take!/2” “the language allows for algebraic data types, nominal types, etc”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “The "confident idiot" problem: Why AI needs hard rules, not vibe checks”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Tied to JavaScript runtime
“you're stuck with JavaScript runtime”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “I tried Gleam for Advent of Code”
Other programming languages people recommend
The four most recommended other programming languages, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 163 programming languages, rankedWhat people said
16 of the 19 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Having an effect system so that Claude is not tempted to throw in side-effects everywhere helps a lot too”
“absolutely love having row polymorphism”
“it's very much alive outside of JS as well”
“I did like what I saw of Purescript”
“It looked pretty cool to me.”
“Worth to explore with AI.”
“If you're looking for something approaching Haskell's expressiveness but with fewer of these issues, check out PureScript.”
“it seemed to be a bit lacking in ecosystem at the time”
“The best decision ever Purescript made was to not make the language lazy by default.”
“PureScript is truly underrated as a language and as a gateway to the entire JS ecosystem!”
“statically typed languages that support row polymorphism a la PureScript”
“pure vibecoders can do lastingly valuable work in PureScript”
“It's orders of magnitude better than Elm and even improves upon Haskell in some meaningful ways (row polymorphism).”
“you're stuck with JavaScript runtime”
“the language allows for algebraic data types, nominal types, etc”
“Even by default you get more power than i.e. vanilla Haskell, with row-types.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.