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The rest of 2023 in Melange

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As October 2023 unfolds, we'd like to present what we're planning to work on during what remains of 2023. Built upon the invaluable feedback of our users and our vision for Melange, we are excited about what's next.

Melange v3 ​

By the close of Q4 2023, we're set to launch Melange v3. Here's a breakdown of our main focus for shipping a new major release:

  • Fast, Reliable Builds: We're fine-tuning Melange to ensure faster, more reliable project builds. This work is spread across a few fronts:

    • implementing some missing compiler and build system optimizations, improving the associated dune rules, and honing the underlying artifact representation for optimal performance.

    • improving the Melange core to be faster to build, run and evolve.

  • JavaScript Expressivity:

    • we're aiming to make JavaScript idioms more intuitive in Melange. We're implementing more supported interoperability attributes, exploring new ways of writing bindings and surfacing their documentation and enriching the existing sections in the Melange docs.

    • we're planning on unifying the Melange core APIs around an abstraction over both pipe operators |> and ->, allowing us to remove some modules where standard library duplication exists, ensuring a more consistent user experience, reducing confusion and evolvability of the code.

    • from supporting React 18 to introducing async component support, we're ensuring Melange stays up to date with the latest in React development. To make is easier to add these, we're planning to safely type JavaScript dynamic import(): this will make code more concise by removing the need for verbose workarounds but also ensures safety, reducing runtime errors

  • Development & Learning Experience

    • With an emphasis on user-friendliness, we're improving the Melange Playground with a few requested features: by the end of the quarter it will offer advanced code diagnostics, bundle the new Melange v2 melange.dom library, present errors and warnings in a more robust way and test a new way of learning how to communicate with JavaScript from Melange.

    • Until the end of 2023, we're going to design and start implementing a whole new Melange website consolidated around a distinct, consistent brand.

    • We're planning to publish Melange for React Devs, a guided introduction for developers with existing React.js knowledge, bridging the gap between React and Melange, showcasing how some common React.js constructs are expressed in OCaml / Reason and Melange.

The Melange Legacy ​

Having integrated with the OCaml Platform set of tools and ensured Melange package availability in the OPAM repository, our previous releases have set the stage for what's next: with Melange v3, we're striving for an even more robust, expressive toolchain with an improved set of learning resources and an unmatched in-browser learning experience on the Melange Playground.

The above is just a glimpse into what we're working on. Consult the full roadmap document for more detail around what we'll be up to until the end of 2023.

Thank you for reading and happy hacking!