A few years ago, I first learned of the Reason programming language, which is an alternate syntax to OCaml that more closely resembles JavaScript. Through a compiler called BuckleScript, Reason could also target JavaScript. But later, BuckleScript was rebranded as ReScript and introduced its own somewhat different syntax, essentially becoming its own programming language. It got very confusing for a while, but eventually everything settled down, and both projects are still going.
I was reminded of ReScript and Reason after listening to an episode of the excellent Developer Voices podcast (hosted by Kris Jenkins) about ReScript, so I started reading up on them again. That’s when I noticed that ReScript didn’t have its own Wikipedia article. So I created one.
I also noticed that the Wikipedia article on Reason was pretty outdated, so I updated it to reflect on how it has moved on to using another compiler for targeting JavaScript called Melange. (There was a great Developer Voices episode on Reason and Melange too.)
Hopefully, these changes will make the difference between Reason and ReScript more clear!