On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 11:59 AM, Dick Wall <[email protected]> wrote:
> REPLs are useless, but something not called a REPL built into eclipse is > super-useful and you use it all the time despite being an experienced java > developer. I believe Reinier said that even though Eclipse has scrapbook pages, he hardly ever uses them. Neither do I. I do use Eclipse's "Display" view *all the time* because when I need to try a piece of Java code, it's hardly even in a brand new state: I need a lot of context, fields initialized, the program in the right state, etc... In other words, I use Display inside a breakpoint all the time. I haven't run a rigorous analysis but I'm pretty sure that when I want to test a piece of Java code, 90% of the time, a REPL would simply not just cut it: only a breakpoint would. Like Reinier said, it might have something to do with the fact that the complexity is shifting between Java and Scala. Java's code is straightforward, so anyone with just a few years of experience will have quickly outgrown the need to experiment with standalone pieces of code. However, Java code inside programs can be gnarly, and that's where the Display view and the debugger come in handy. Scala is different: it's not just live code that can be hard, but standalone code as well, so maybe there's more need to test standalone code with it. I'm almost tempted to say that the necessity to use a REPL so often is a smell in a language. Almost. But it's elf time, not troll time, so I'll leave it at that. Happy holidays everyone. -- Cédric -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
