When moving from a dynamically typed language to a statically typed one, about the only thing I end up missing is hot reloading. In gamedev, static types don't

When moving from a dynamically typed language to a statically typed one, about the only thing I end up missing is hot reloading. In gamedev, static types don't help when you have a constant value you have to change that tweaks the gameplay buried inside a compiled class that you want to balance out. Changing that one constant means either putting it in a script, which is usually written in a dynamically typed language, or recompiling the whole program, testing, changing the value, and repeating. The only real reason I choose dynamic languages is because I spent hours on that last cycle just recompiling the whole program and throwing away all the state for a single small change, then getting the engine back to the previous state I was debugging in. I still don't understand if it was a bad habit or just how my mind wants me to program. I expect to be able to interact with my program and see how changing things affects the behavior very quickly, and a compile cycled shuts down that mode of thinking entirely. I remember Steve Yegge's essay that mentioned this, that "rebooting is dying." [1] There were a lot of times I could write scripts, but the fact was that most of the time the code I wanted to tweak slightly was compiled, and that required a full module recompile every time. The fact is that if some of my code can be compiled, then I will probably end up changing the compiled code at some point, and that means a lot of waiting. If C# had the ability to hot reload a class like a dynamic language to cut down the recompile cycle, I would be happy, but it sounds like it isn't possible. The old code will be mixed with the new code leading to instability. So I've been spoiled by a dynamic language (Lua) while acknowledging I made a trade-off for one single feature. In my case if I used a statically typed language I would lose out on certain things and gain others, but dynamic program rewriting seems to best coincide with how I think, and I'm not sure how if I should change that. [1] http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/01/pinocchio-problem.html?m=1 http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/01/pinocchio-problem.ht...