Make Programming Fun Again

2026-02-03

Trying to make a sketch of my opinion of what constitutes fun programming…

Fun

• JIT type checking

  • include duck typing

• Full REPL

  • REPL allows us of full language in REPL, language can operate on itself

  • REPL allows examining anything, on the fly

  • REPL allows redefining anything, on the fly

  • REPL allows continuing from where you left off after correcting an error, without starting from scratch

• GC (Garbage Collection)

  • N.B. many modern languages include GC

Not Fun (Production Engineering)

• AOT (Ahead of Time) type checking

• manual memory management

• manual type checking

• stunted REPL

  • examine just about every kind of thing

  • cannot redefine ever kind of thing

  • need to start from scratch, e.g. recompile, after correcting an error

See Also

Email: ptcomputingsimplicity@gmail.com

Substack: paultarvydas.substack.com

Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@programmingsimplicity2980

Discord: https://discord.gg/65YZUh6Jpq

Leanpub: [WIP] https://leanpub.com/u/paul-tarvydas

Twitter: @paul_tarvydas

Bluesky: @paultarvydas.bsky.social

Mastodon: @paultarvydas

(earlier) Blog: guitarvydas.github.io

References: https://guitarvydas.github.io/2024/01/06/References.html