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flufluflufluffy 3 hours ago [-]
> And because Bonsai is written in OCaml, it becomes possible to use the same language and types on both the backend and frontend.
Finally! I was waiting for this to become possible!
philipwhiuk 2 hours ago [-]
Similar attempts include Scalajs.
The general challenge becomes integrating the fractional front-end code written in your backend-language that compiles to JS with the rest of the JS ecosystem.
JaneStreet have a love of writing their own stuff from scratch so it doesn't apply to them but it might to you.
Hence most people end up with frontend-as-backend rather than backend-as-frontend.
I took this as a joke in reference to the popularity of JavaScript on the backend for the last two decades.
nobleach 31 minutes ago [-]
Yup, and Clojure/ClojureScript!
lbourdages 2 hours ago [-]
Couldn't WASM solve that problem once and for all? Is there some limitation that WASM has that JS doesn't?
Disclaimer: I am very inexperienced at front-end development.
danielheath 1 hours ago [-]
> Is there some limitation that WASM has that JS doesn't?
You need a JS trampoline to call your WASM and make browser primitives available to it, and IIRC calls into browser code incur some extra overhead, but those are pretty manageable.
Additionally: for high level languages, source code is _much_ smaller than compiled binaries. If your initial needs are simple, your users are likely downloading more than 10x as much code.
rw2 1 hours ago [-]
I am sure it's very performant, but to me it's extremely ugly; Surely someone can fix margins and still have it be performant.
pgwhalen 39 minutes ago [-]
I’m no UI expert - what’s wrong with the margins?
LooseEquipment 28 minutes ago [-]
inconsistent and maybe too tight, but I would think those are issues with the sample UIs and not this library
ctxc 7 minutes ago [-]
Probably because they skew towards higher information density
chrischen 1 hours ago [-]
Curious how this compares to Melange which is used by Ocaml shops as well to double up on Ocaml for both front and backend (ahrefs being the major user and sponsor). Does this mean giving up a lot of the JS ecosystem (React, graphql, etc)?
Schlagbohrer 49 minutes ago [-]
Can someone who understands web UI programming tell me if this would be good for my local agent to use to produce HTML based reports and outputs for me? Or for TUI outputs?
antonvs 11 minutes ago [-]
Probably not, because your agent won’t have much info about this tool in its training set.
tecoholic 45 minutes ago [-]
Why does this library get posted here, what feels like every month? I remember it seeing at least twice before.
cassepipe 9 minutes ago [-]
Been here 5 years, never saw it
jere 41 minutes ago [-]
HN is obsessed with anything done in niche programming languages, is my guess.
bmitc 39 minutes ago [-]
Also, Jane Street.
adastra22 1 hours ago [-]
The “The thinking in bonsai” link 404s.
This says it is based on Elm. So it has the same clean immutable state structure?
ubercore 2 hours ago [-]
Not sure why, but reminds me of Fog Creek's Wasabi.
MrBuddyCasino 20 minutes ago [-]
This is great. It focuses on utility and information density over design. It looks like someone took a terminal UI and transplanted it to the web, Bloomberg terminal style.
I'm pretty sure you can build tools with this that are fast and pleasant to use.
xvilka 4 hours ago [-]
Looks like it's Web-only, no mention of the native UI support (terminal UI excluded).
avsm 3 hours ago [-]
There's a full terminal implementation of Bonsai as well. I actually use it in my personal workflow these days to manage my contacts database! https://anil.recoil.org/notes/aoah-2025-9
aquariusDue 2 hours ago [-]
Unrelated but what do you use to manage your personal website? I love how everything is interconnected.
bobjansen 3 hours ago [-]
This would of been cool back in 2014.
nbevans 1 hours ago [-]
It looks like a nice little library; but oh boy must this be so limiting for the product teams that are forced to use. Everything looks like it's straight out of the 1990s.
hahahaa 4 hours ago [-]
Oh it needs a userland trampoline!
> JSOO does not have tail call optimization
kubb 3 hours ago [-]
I wish there were more OCaml shops out there
gigatexal 2 hours ago [-]
All your money and retirement funds are safe; I’m too dumb to work at JaneStreet; every time I see OCAML I feel less than and confused.
Traster 4 hours ago [-]
The "Why Bonsai?" I found really funny.
Let me re-write that section for you:
Why Bonsai?
At Jane Street we're super excited by Functional programming and by CAML in particular, so when we need low latency software, we use OCAML, when we need hardware, we write out own langauge - HardCAML, and when we need a Web UI, we build a Web UI framework in CAML. Because we fucking love CAML.
troupo 1 hours ago [-]
And there's nothing wrong with that. Many languages attempt to do the same thing. Why bother with 15 different languages if you can leverage one?
See also LiveView and Hologram for Elixir.
bofeiw 3 hours ago [-]
Agreed, looks like it's reinventing the wheels. Frameworks does not really matter today, AI agents write the code anyway.
KolmogorovComp 3 hours ago [-]
But AI do benefit a lot from a strict compiler, and having a simple language improve a lot on type-safety, so I don't think it is to throw, even today.
rmzs0711 3 hours ago [-]
But what about compilation speed? Hot reload? Maintainability? What is the bus factor for these kind of technologies?
Yea, its cool to have strict type safety, but what's the point of it doesn't have all the benefits from other Frameworks that took years to polish
OtherShrezzing 2 hours ago [-]
JaneStreet has enough free cash to not worry about those issues. If one of their key persons dies in service, they can go out and contract the worlds leading expert in that domain, and their annualised rate isn’t even a rounding error on their bottom line.
shAIster 2 hours ago [-]
AI certainly writes Internet comments so that the flock does not have a single minute to get independent thoughts.
ForHackernews 3 hours ago [-]
Better frameworks will still help AIs avoid silly mistakes. A smarter framework means you can be productive with a dumber/cheaper AI.
Finally! I was waiting for this to become possible!
The general challenge becomes integrating the fractional front-end code written in your backend-language that compiles to JS with the rest of the JS ecosystem.
JaneStreet have a love of writing their own stuff from scratch so it doesn't apply to them but it might to you.
Hence most people end up with frontend-as-backend rather than backend-as-frontend.
https://ocsigen.org/ in Ocaml too
https://websharper.com/ for fsharp and csharp. Really good when I used in in fsharp
Maybe https://melange.re/v7.0.1/ too? (Not sure)
Disclaimer: I am very inexperienced at front-end development.
You need a JS trampoline to call your WASM and make browser primitives available to it, and IIRC calls into browser code incur some extra overhead, but those are pretty manageable.
Additionally: for high level languages, source code is _much_ smaller than compiled binaries. If your initial needs are simple, your users are likely downloading more than 10x as much code.
This says it is based on Elm. So it has the same clean immutable state structure?
I'm pretty sure you can build tools with this that are fast and pleasant to use.
> JSOO does not have tail call optimization
Let me re-write that section for you:
Why Bonsai?
At Jane Street we're super excited by Functional programming and by CAML in particular, so when we need low latency software, we use OCAML, when we need hardware, we write out own langauge - HardCAML, and when we need a Web UI, we build a Web UI framework in CAML. Because we fucking love CAML.
See also LiveView and Hologram for Elixir.
Yea, its cool to have strict type safety, but what's the point of it doesn't have all the benefits from other Frameworks that took years to polish