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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: 0.218s | 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. taeric ◴[05 Feb 25 23:58 UTC] No.42957162[source]▶
Java has been able to hot swap code since the beginning? Well, maybe not the beginning. But very early versions.

The standard runtime didn't like some redefinition. But there were alternatives. Eclipse, for example, would purposely let you get otherwise broken code running so that you could breakpoint and replace as you went.