4 ms·

That's… exactly the opposite of my experience, and that of every Haskeller I know. Refactoring is 100x easier in Haskell than any other language I've worked in.

izacus 10y ago
What was the biggest and oldest codebase you worked on?
- nbouscal 10y ago
  A few years and maybe ~50k lines of code, iirc. I've heard the exact same reports from people who work on multi-million-line Haskell codebases, though (e.g. Standard Chartered).
preordained 10y ago
100 times easier than right-click refactor in a modern Java IDE? I beg to differ--if we are talking about your typical Haskell vim/text editor rig. For a language with such powerful types, it's like a gun with no bullets lacking a good IDE to take full advantage.
- nbouscal 10y ago
  I've never used a modern Java IDE (as I've been fortunate enough to never have to program in Java), but still feel confident in the claim that refactoring Haskell is 100 times easier, yes.
  - zigzigzag 10y ago
    Then you probably should, before making such claims. IntelliJ can do refactorings like the following: Extract code into a function, automatically suggested by duplicated code detection. Inline functions back into call sites. Convert imperative for-loops to functional style streams and back again. Change function prototypes globally by adding or removing parameters. Extract classes and interfaces. Common sub-expression elimination (i.e. select an expression, introduce a new variable, all uses of that expression can be replaced as well) Detect dead code and automatically remove it. Refactorings across languages. Replace inheritance with delegation or vice-versa. Automatically generify code. Extraction of type variables. Obviously a whole suite of structural code changes like renamings and other smaller things. That's without getting into all the other code intelligence features. Regardless of how fancy you feel the type system of a language is, these sorts of keyboard-driven refactorings are tremendously helpful for getting code and APIs right.
- codygman 10y ago
  > For a language with such powerful types, it's like a gun with no bullets lacking a good IDE to take full advantage. Agreed, though hare is trying (has, but needs editor integrations?) to address this: https://github.com/RefactoringTools/HaRe https://github.com/RefactoringTools/HaRe
- kqr 10y ago
  If your idea of "refactor" is "change name of variable", then I guess Java wins. However, the refactors I do are frequently much more complicated, involving logic swaps that are far beyond a right click action.
- TheCoelacanth 10y ago
  Java IDEs only handle a few of the simplest cases of refactoring. That's useful, but it's not enough to make refactoring easy in general.

izacus 10y ago

What was the biggest and oldest codebase you worked on?

nbouscal 10y ago
A few years and maybe ~50k lines of code, iirc. I've heard the exact same reports from people who work on multi-million-line Haskell codebases, though (e.g. Standard Chartered).

preordained 10y ago

100 times easier than right-click refactor in a modern Java IDE? I beg to differ--if we are talking about your typical Haskell vim/text editor rig. For a language with such powerful types, it's like a gun with no bullets lacking a good IDE to take full advantage.

nbouscal 10y ago
I've never used a modern Java IDE (as I've been fortunate enough to never have to program in Java), but still feel confident in the claim that refactoring Haskell is 100 times easier, yes.
- zigzigzag 10y ago
  Then you probably should, before making such claims. IntelliJ can do refactorings like the following: Extract code into a function, automatically suggested by duplicated code detection. Inline functions back into call sites. Convert imperative for-loops to functional style streams and back again. Change function prototypes globally by adding or removing parameters. Extract classes and interfaces. Common sub-expression elimination (i.e. select an expression, introduce a new variable, all uses of that expression can be replaced as well) Detect dead code and automatically remove it. Refactorings across languages. Replace inheritance with delegation or vice-versa. Automatically generify code. Extraction of type variables. Obviously a whole suite of structural code changes like renamings and other smaller things. That's without getting into all the other code intelligence features. Regardless of how fancy you feel the type system of a language is, these sorts of keyboard-driven refactorings are tremendously helpful for getting code and APIs right.
codygman 10y ago
> For a language with such powerful types, it's like a gun with no bullets lacking a good IDE to take full advantage. Agreed, though hare is trying (has, but needs editor integrations?) to address this: https://github.com/RefactoringTools/HaRe https://github.com/RefactoringTools/HaRe
kqr 10y ago
If your idea of "refactor" is "change name of variable", then I guess Java wins. However, the refactors I do are frequently much more complicated, involving logic swaps that are far beyond a right click action.
TheCoelacanth 10y ago
Java IDEs only handle a few of the simplest cases of refactoring. That's useful, but it's not enough to make refactoring easy in general.