A tool to generate a list of custom type constructors

[akoppela]

@pdamoc

This is not really The Elm Way™.

Why do you think it’s not the Elm way? There are many examples where a tool to generate Elm module maybe useful. E.g. turn JSON file with translations into Elm module.

@pdamoc

Some jobs that the elm programmer is trying to do should be identified, pains and gains around those jobs should be identified and then a solution designed to address the issues identified.

The pain is that a list of constructors is created manually. The gain is that a tool can be simply added to build task and guarantee to always have a full list of constructors.

@pdamoc

The value that the tool provides has to be large enough that the development and maintenance costs are offset by it.

I do agree here, that’s why I raised the question. It’s quite a small tool. So I’m interested to gather feedback if anyone else founds it painful to update a list of constructors or not really?

E.g. I remember @Janiczek made a post and another post about a list of constructors before. So there is definitely pain there.

@pdamoc

There are some places where I need the types converted into lists. Most of the time this accomplished without pain by just copy&paste plus some multi-selection edit to replace | with a , . It takes just a few seconds.

This kind of functionality might work wonderfully within editor plugins.

@gigobyte

Surely you can do that inside your editor with a few shortcuts/macros, a full blown tool is overkill for this kind of task.

Yes, the work to convert constructors of a custom type into a list is very straight forward. The question here really is if it can be automated, why not? Also if it’s a part of editor plugin how would you guarantee it works the same way company wide?