My first impressions of Gleam

Posted by AlexeyBrin 9/13/2025

My first impressions of Gleam(mtlynch.io)

237 points | 78 commentspage 2

datboi_420 9/13/2025|

This was a great read! One thing that def makes Gleams error handling _look_ nicer, is utilizing `result.try` with the `use` keyword.

librasteve 9/13/2025||

thanks for posting this --- very interesting to read the "first impressions of FP" side of it

to be honest, I felt like shouting "please try raku" (https://raku.org) after about 4 paragraphs!

why? well raku Grammars are built in parsers...

scuff3d 9/13/2025||

I tried with Gleam, I really wanted to like it. I really like Louis Pilfold and I like his goals for the language. But something about it just didn't click for me. It's a good language, but at the end of the day I just didn't enjoy writing it.

It might be something the author talked about, but I think the language might be too small. It's one of the things I dislike about Rust too. I prefer a more batteries included approach because I can't stand having to pull in a bunch of small dependencies.

jitl 9/13/2025||

Rust is a HUGE language with a small stdlib. Gleam is a small language with a small stdlib.

scuff3d 9/13/2025||

Yes, thank you for pointing that out...

My point was about the need to rely on external libraries. I'm not a fan of that approach. I don't care for it in Rust or JavaScript, and I get a similar vibe from Gleam.

jitl 9/14/2025||

Agree. My dream:

Go stdlib and tooling

A good programming language

scuff3d 9/14/2025||

Odin?

renox 9/14/2025|||

Not the GP but while Odin has a syntax similar to Go, it has manual memory management instead of a GC, that's a pretty big difference.

scuff3d 9/14/2025||

Obviously, but it's an extremely well design language with a batteries included approach to the standard library.

jitl 9/14/2025|||

I’d prefer a GC language with exhaustive matching on discriminated union types. Maybe “go + typescript type system + higher kinded types”. Swift is in the ballpark and would be a lot more appealing with the go tooling.

But fill in the blank with your preference :)

scuff3d 9/14/2025||

Ocaml? It garbage collected, primarily functional but with options for an imperative style when necessary. Of course its std isn't very good. I think Jane Street has done a lot improve things, but the whole ecosystem is still kind of a mess.

jitl 9/14/2025||

I just can’t with the OCaml header files. Like what the hell all the types are inferred but you’re gonna make me write a header file for each module???

garbthetill 9/13/2025||

Im on the same boat and this is coming from someone who loves the beam thanks to elixir, I think the marketing of the lang threw me of a bit. But I might give it a try this week, as im feeling a bit burnt out with elixir

earlier this week I was thinking why aren't there more languages around the actor model and completely forgot gleam exists

scuff3d 9/14/2025||

Gleam is cool. I absolutely love that it's statically typed (dynamic typing is one of the things that pushes me away from Elixir), and the core of the language is very well designed. I just hate how small it is. I shouldn't need to bring in an external dependency for friggin file i/o.

And I know the common argument is that's it due to the fact you can target either the BEAM or a web browser, but those arguments don't fly. The default target is the BEAM, the standard library can support that and use external packages for the browser.

curtisszmania 9/13/2025||

[dead]

effnorwood 9/13/2025||

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back2dafucha 9/13/2025||

The only languages Im interested in are future proof AI resistant languages. Since LLMs need alot of training (because they cant read language ASTs and write code correctly), a language that either isnt possible to express using fonts and character sets on the Internet, can only live in a private cloud, and is known to only verified practitioners runs on everything, and yet cant be decompiled.

You can launch a nuclear war in 5 lines of Visual Basic. I want a language AI doesnt know and cannot ever know.

DetroitThrow 9/13/2025||

>and cannot ever know

It might be resistant to human uptake in that case, too? Brett Victor I suppose has some interesting human-first or human-only physical computers.

back2dafucha 9/13/2025||

Thats ok. We have done enough language research to build another powerhouse language that is AI resistant that practitioners can use. Its uptake is only relevant to those that wish to exclude LLMs from the picture to resist the agents. When LLM agents are everywhere secret societies will become the norm.

We may even have the expertise to actually transpile every single program into a unique programming language so that if the source were available LLM bots would not recognize it in any volume enough to learn from it.

flexagoon 9/13/2025|||

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbolge

tgv 9/13/2025||

I suggest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_%28programming_lang..., which consists purely of white space, which isn't tokenized by LLMs. The code is very easy on the eye.

jcmontx 9/13/2025||

You better start writing your own compilers then

MomsAVoxell 9/14/2025||

This, however, has always been true and is not just an issue of AI.

lordofgibbons 9/13/2025|

Gleam has caught my eye for the past year or so, and I'd totally learn it if I didn't believe firmly that we won't be coding by hand within the next 9 months. It'll all be done by LLMs so syntax and ergonomics won't mean too much. At least as soon as LLMs learn to stop being turbo-slop generators.

IshKebab 9/13/2025||

9 months? I mean... 9 years maybe. There's absolutely no way we won't be coding by hand in 9 months, unless the only thing you do is landing pages and CRUD forms.

sgt 9/13/2025|||

Not even 9 years, I'm thinking 30-40 years.

arcanemachiner 9/13/2025|||

Never underestimate the ability of the software industry to shit in its own mouth.

buggy6257 9/13/2025|||

See you in 9 months then to check back.

tgv 9/13/2025||

Anthropic's CEO said 6 months, 6 months ago. https://futurism.com/six-months-anthropic-coding

echelon 9/13/2025|||

> if I didn't believe firmly that we won't be coding by hand within the next 9 months.

LLM-assisted coding is awesome, but it feels like a self-driving style problem.

It's going to take 20 years to get there.

a3w 9/13/2025|||

Doe LLMs write valid Gleam programs? Trying with ChatGPT three years ago, it did not. Workarounds, like "here is the syntax as a system prompt", put into the prompt I would not consider understanding, as Gleam idioms and patterns will certainly not all fit.

adastra22 9/13/2025|||

GP is crazy, but if you are basing your view of what LLMs can do based on ChatGPT 3 years ago, that is just as much out of touch.

perrygeo 9/14/2025|||

The entire Gleam language tour (https://tour.gleam.run/everything/) is comprehensive. It contains examples of every language feature and prints to less than 70 pages - easily fits into the context window of any recent LLM.

0x3f 9/13/2025||

You should learn Gleam then.