8 ms·

Live/hot reloading is a thing in various web frameworks and supported by various ecosystems, from Java over Python up to Nodejs. Funnily, development with hot r

by ktpsns 5y ago

Live/hot reloading is a thing in various web frameworks and supported by various ecosystems, from Java over Python up to Nodejs. Funnily, development with hot reloading systems is: - Change a line of code - Alt+Tab to switch to Firefox - No need to press F5 because site already updated.

berkes 5y ago
And so does Rails and Sinatra in Ruby land. I have encountered very few development servers that lacked hot-reloading in decades. Many such stacks will even inject some JS or headers to automatically refresh the browser for you on detected changes. I think OP may have an outdated or skewed experience of web-development stacks. Where PHP through apache+mod_php had "instant code refresh" back in early 2000s, and other stacks (Beans, CGI, etc) required a manual reboot everytime you'd want to check your changes in a browser. But this hasn't been true since Rails was released in 2004~5. Ironically the most difficult one I recently encoutered was a PHP-FPM with APC, that required a "manually" restart of nginx and php-fpm in the right order after every code change. But this really is not suited as "development" server, as shown in this anecdotal issue.
- thraxil 5y ago
  > and other stacks (Beans, CGI, etc) required a manual reboot Hey, now! Don't go lumping CGI in with those. :) CGI had the same "instant code refresh" as PHP since before PHP even existed. It even had a better "shared nothing" approach since you were guaranteed to start an entirely new process for every request.
  - berkes 5y ago
    Sorry. CGI is a bit unfair. I recall it refreshed fine with Perl, but CGI wrapping compiled languages (I did some C webdev back then) was a bit more involved. It's vague, but IIRC, that had more to do with the compiler than the CGI, indeed.
    - thraxil 5y ago
      Fair. My main experience with CGI was bash, Perl, and Python so I tend to think of compiled languages in a completely different context.
IshKebab 5y ago
I hate PHP too but you have to admit that its execution model is way simpler and more reliable than any hot reloading system. In my experience hot reload saves you a bunch of time when it's working, and then costs you the same amount of time when it randomly breaks and you spend half an hour getting confused about what the hell is going on before realising that a simple refresh fixes it. The only really good hot reload system I've seen is Flutter's.

by ktpsns 5y ago

berkes 5y ago

And so does Rails and Sinatra in Ruby land. I have encountered very few development servers that lacked hot-reloading in decades. Many such stacks will even inject some JS or headers to automatically refresh the browser for you on detected changes. I think OP may have an outdated or skewed experience of web-development stacks. Where PHP through apache+mod_php had "instant code refresh" back in early 2000s, and other stacks (Beans, CGI, etc) required a manual reboot everytime you'd want to check your changes in a browser. But this hasn't been true since Rails was released in 2004~5. Ironically the most difficult one I recently encoutered was a PHP-FPM with APC, that required a "manually" restart of nginx and php-fpm in the right order after every code change. But this really is not suited as "development" server, as shown in this anecdotal issue.

thraxil 5y ago
> and other stacks (Beans, CGI, etc) required a manual reboot Hey, now! Don't go lumping CGI in with those. :) CGI had the same "instant code refresh" as PHP since before PHP even existed. It even had a better "shared nothing" approach since you were guaranteed to start an entirely new process for every request.
- berkes 5y ago
  Sorry. CGI is a bit unfair. I recall it refreshed fine with Perl, but CGI wrapping compiled languages (I did some C webdev back then) was a bit more involved. It's vague, but IIRC, that had more to do with the compiler than the CGI, indeed.
  - thraxil 5y ago
    Fair. My main experience with CGI was bash, Perl, and Python so I tend to think of compiled languages in a completely different context.

IshKebab 5y ago

I hate PHP too but you have to admit that its execution model is way simpler and more reliable than any hot reloading system. In my experience hot reload saves you a bunch of time when it's working, and then costs you the same amount of time when it randomly breaks and you spend half an hour getting confused about what the hell is going on before realising that a simple refresh fixes it. The only really good hot reload system I've seen is Flutter's.