2 ms·

Or you need a REPL that lets you poke at the living code. It's just different.

Capricorn2481 2y ago
I think their point is, even with the REPL, it takes time to track down every spot that function might be called and figure out what was passed to it. A type is very easy to see localized on the function.
- iLemming 2y ago
  > A type is very easy to see localized on the function. "You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means"... When you say "types," can you please give a concrete example of what languages you're talking about? Whenever someone talks about Clojure from type theory talking points, they make it sound like it's completely untyped or weakly typed. Clojure has its own type systems, and you can express things in them that are far more difficult to do in some other languages, even with static types. It is also a strongly typed language, and in practice, I feel far more confident about our Clojure code than anything written in TS or Java. Sure, static type systems have their value, and some of them are really nice. In practice though, whenever I have to jump in to deal with Java, Typescript, or even Rust code - there's so much seemingly unnecessary fluff, and I don't feel the practical worth of dealing with types - it almost always feels taxing. Haskell/OCaml is a different story - I can buy that one. But realistically, getting to the point of writing practical software in Haskell is an incredibly bumpy road, and (relatively) few programmers successfully achieve good milestones on it.
  - Capricorn2481 2y ago
    I use Clojure. I'm aware it's strongly typed. I never said it wasn't, actually. You might want to reread my comment. But I can't expect most codebases to use spec or malli. The comment I replied to said that's what the REPL is for. A REPL, while helpful for a lot of things, will not tell you about an argument faster than a type annotation.

I think their point is, even with the REPL, it takes time to track down every spot that function might be called and figure out what was passed to it. A type is very easy to see localized on the function.

iLemming 2y ago
> A type is very easy to see localized on the function. "You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means"... When you say "types," can you please give a concrete example of what languages you're talking about? Whenever someone talks about Clojure from type theory talking points, they make it sound like it's completely untyped or weakly typed. Clojure has its own type systems, and you can express things in them that are far more difficult to do in some other languages, even with static types. It is also a strongly typed language, and in practice, I feel far more confident about our Clojure code than anything written in TS or Java. Sure, static type systems have their value, and some of them are really nice. In practice though, whenever I have to jump in to deal with Java, Typescript, or even Rust code - there's so much seemingly unnecessary fluff, and I don't feel the practical worth of dealing with types - it almost always feels taxing. Haskell/OCaml is a different story - I can buy that one. But realistically, getting to the point of writing practical software in Haskell is an incredibly bumpy road, and (relatively) few programmers successfully achieve good milestones on it.
- Capricorn2481 2y ago
  I use Clojure. I'm aware it's strongly typed. I never said it wasn't, actually. You might want to reread my comment. But I can't expect most codebases to use spec or malli. The comment I replied to said that's what the REPL is for. A REPL, while helpful for a lot of things, will not tell you about an argument faster than a type annotation.