Proposal: Optional "return" as Syntactic Sugar in ReScript 13

Author: Jonathan Jewell Status: Draft / RFC Goal: Facilitate onboarding for JS/TS developers without compromising ReScript’s functional core.

---

Overview

Add return as optional syntactic sugar for function expressions. This desugars to the last expression during compilation, with zero semantic or performance impact.

Current ReScript | Proposed (Sugar) | Desugared Output -- | -- | -- let add = (a, b) => a + b | let add = (a, b) => return a + b | let add = (a, b) => a + b

---

Call to Action

• If this sounds good, I am offering to:
  • Implement the prototype and draft documentation.
  • Monitor community feedback and report back before ReScript 14.
• Proposal team:
  • Greenlight: To try it as an experiment, see what the reception is.
  • Feedback: Suggest improvements or dealbreakers.
  • Veto: If the team feels this is misaligned, we can drop it - no hard feelings!

Final Note:

This is not about changing ReScript, but I think it is useful in helping onboard more developers to discover why it is great and helps users implement some of the most basic functions in their language in Rescript. If it does not work or is received poorly, we can kill it without any issue. But in any case, it is optional for use, and - as sugar - and would not anticipate any reason to affect backward compat or future ambitions for the language.

---

Next Steps:

1. Discuss in the next core team meeting.
2. If approved, I’ll open a PR for the prototype.
3. Interact with the community via an RFC or blog post.

The issue names no files, tests, or compiler entry points. Start with the RFC discussion and the planned core team review; done would require an approved prototype and draft documentation, followed by community feedback.