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John Carmack on mutable variables

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498 points azhenley | 1 comments | 31 Oct 25 02:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.206s | source
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munchler ◴[31 Oct 25 02:54 UTC] No.45767832[source]▶
> Making almost every variable const at initialization is good practice. I wish it was the default, and mutable was a keyword.

It's funny how functional programming is slowly becoming the best practice for modern code (pure functions, no side-effects), yet functional programming languages are still considered fringe tech for some reason.

If you want a language where const is the default and mutable is a keyword, try F# for starters. I switched and never looked back.

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1. bmitc ◴[31 Oct 25 13:45 UTC] No.45771926[source]▶
I get your sentiment, but I side on it's infuriating that it's taken this long. Lol.

F# is wonderful. It is the best general purpose language, in my opinion. I looked for F# jobs for years and never landed one and gave up. I write Rust now which has opened up the embedded world, and it's nice that Rust paid attention to F# and OCaml.