Even in a somewhat flexible language like JavaScript, it is often painful when you are limited by the lack of this kind of flexibility. The code is _right there

Even in a somewhat flexible language like JavaScript, it is often painful when you are limited by the lack of this kind of flexibility. The code is _right there_, you can look at it, but you cannot do anything with it. (Exceptions exist where an API provides a sane data representation but that is rare.) As a JS programmer by day and a Clojure hobbyist it feels like being a ghost in one of these movies, where they cannot interact with the world directly anymore. It's very frustrating. I sometimes think about all of the unnecessary work that is being done, the proliferation of libraries, tools and "transpilers" just because we lack this basic thing. I have never played with Smalltalk or some of its dialects or descendants. But judging from articles like this one, I have the feeling that I will end up liking it and then feel even more constrained by mainstream languages.