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Software development topics I've changed my mind on

(chriskiehl.com)
873 points belter | 1 comments | 05 Feb 25 09:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.199s | source
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ertucetin ◴[05 Feb 25 11:36 UTC] No.42947096[source]▶
> REPLs are not useful design tools (though, they are useful exploratory tools)

I disagree with this. I’m a Clojure dev, and most of the time, I use the REPL to iterate on features, fix bugs, and refactor, thanks to the fast feedback loop.

I used to be a Java dev—oh god, restarting the whole app after every change made me want to shoot myself in the head. Now, I use the REPL to build what I want and then move on. This brings joy back to programming.

I’m not saying other languages are bad, but working with Clojure is more enjoyable for me. I’m at least 2-3 times faster than I was with Java. Of course, there are techniques you need to know to write efficient and idiomatic functional code.

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1. nickpeterson ◴[05 Feb 25 11:58 UTC] No.42947281[source]▶
I could definitely see how if you work in Java or C# all day, repls feel like a neat curiosity. Picture telling someone who writes scheme in emacs that repls aren't a good design tool.

If you want to argue the point with non lisp people, I'd go to javascript or SQL as great examples where you really use repl's quite a bit.