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John Carmack on mutable variables

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498 points azhenley | 3 comments | 31 Oct 25 02:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.407s | source
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slifin ◴[31 Oct 25 08:12 UTC] No.45769470[source]▶
Yeah I wish variables were immutable by default and everything was an expression

Oh well continues day job as a Clojure programmer that is actively threatened by an obnoxious python take over

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sunrunner ◴[31 Oct 25 09:45 UTC] No.45770105[source]▶
As a Python programmer at day job, that is Clojure-curious and sadly only gets to use it for personal projects, and is currently threatened by an obnoxious TypeScript take over, I feel this.
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hn_throw2025 ◴[31 Oct 25 13:21 UTC] No.45771709[source]▶
In the context of the original discussion, TypeScript (and ES6) has const and let.
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1. AstroBen ◴[31 Oct 25 14:42 UTC] No.45772489[source]▶
well yeah except const doesn't make objects or arrays immutable
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2. catlifeonmars ◴[31 Oct 25 14:58 UTC] No.45772682[source]▶
I feel that Java’s “final” would have been a better choice than “const”. It doesn’t have the same confusing connotation.
3. MetaWhirledPeas ◴[31 Oct 25 21:24 UTC] No.45776864[source]▶
Yeah it makes their structure immutable? Something like that. Not useless but not what you would expect.

But for non-objects and non-arrays it's fine.