Getting started with ReasonML

Table of contents for this series of posts: “What is ReasonML?”

In this blog post, I give tips for getting started with the programming language ReasonML.

Installation  #

There are two things to install:

• bs-platform: Installs BuckleScript and enables you to compile ReasonML to JavaScript. The installation is described in the ReasonML Guide.
• reason-cli: Needed to support ReasonML in editors, but also contains various tools, including the interactive ReasonML command line rtop. The installation is described in the ReasonML Guide. Editor support is provided by two parts:
  • On one hand, a so-called language server provides services for working with ReasonML code.
  • On the other hand, editor plugins and similar extension mechanisms communicate with the server to provide the actual support.

Quickly trying out ReasonML  #

The ReasonML online playground  #

The ReasonML website contains an online playground that is very useful for seeing how the language works and what the corresponding JavaScript and OCaml code is. It can also convert from OCaml to ReasonML (more on that later).

The playground’s examples give you a first taste of the language.

rtop, the interactive ReasonML command line  #

rtop is an interactive command line for ReasonML and started via rtop from a shell. Once it runs, interacting with it looks as follows.

Reason # 3 + 4;
- : int = 7

You can already see that everything has a static type in ReasonML. Don’t forget the semicolon at the end – it triggers evaluation! You can quit rtop via Ctrl-D or via #quit;

Template projects  #

There are two template projects to get you started. They are created via bsb (which is part of bs-platform):

• Node.js code:

  bsb -init my-first-app -theme basic-reason
  

• Web development (React):

  bsb -init my-react-app -theme react
  

Important tip: converting OCaml to ReasonML  #

Given that most material relevant for ReasonML uses OCaml’s syntax, it’s very useful to be able to convert from OCaml’s syntax to ReasonML’s. There are two ways of doing so:

• The online playground “Try Reason”.
• The tool refmt (“ReasonML format”) that is part of reason-cli. Get documentation via refmt --help

More documentation on ReasonML  #

In addition to this series of blog posts, what material is there for learning ReasonML?

• The ReasonML Guide is very well written, but brief. It covers most of the language.
  • The API documentation is accessible from the Guide and describes ReasonML’s preliminary standard library.
  • BuckleScript cheat sheet
• OCaml’s manual complements ReasonML’s documentation, but is also terse.
• Real World OCaml (by Yaron Minsky, Jason Hickey, Anil Madhavapeddy) gives a more comprehensive introduction to OCaml.
• Awesome ReasonML is a page with ReasonML resources.