Or, the checklist for good Elm, and the one thing to be careful to avoid

Elm Camp Europe 23 - Denmark

TL;DR: I ran a session at Elm Camp to try discover the worst Elm code possible and its impact. We came up with lots of stuff. Nothing was really a dealbreaker as far as participants felt. The statement “I’d rather deal with bad Elm than good Javascript” was reconfirmed. We now have some examples to add to the community “gut feel”.

Original session prompt

I’ve heard more than a few times “I’d rather deal with bad Elm than good Javascript”.

I think “bad Elm” is probably synonymous with “unintentionally bad Elm”.

But what about the worst Elm? Like, intentionally, maliciously, the absolute most horrible Elm possible. What does that look like? I’d like to think it’s actually still not that bad! Or at least, I can’t imagine not being able to refactor it happily…

Let’s find out together if that’s true!

Join me for a session of:

• 10min: Coming up ideas for how to write the least readable and least maintainable Elm code possible
• 10min: Writing some really bad Elm (note: we didn’t get to this!)
• 10min: Trying to read each others creations and discover the worst Elm possible