> the more you empower the original creator of the code, the greater imbalance you create to the later readers REPL gives you more tools to shoot yourself in t

> the more you empower the original creator of the code, the greater imbalance you create to the later readers REPL gives you more tools to shoot yourself in the foot, but you're not required to use those. Most programmers can write spaghetti code in many Turing-complete languages - not that they do that all the time. In other words, REPL gives you powerful tools - which, yes, can be misused. They are still powerful, and can bring success when used well.