My Kind of REPL (opens in new tab)

(ianthehenry.com)

87 pointsianthehenry2y ago12 comments

12 comments

11 comments · 7 top-level

LectronPusher2y ago· 2 in thread

Is this not a form of mutation testing? With the added idea of treating anything you write to sanity-check the output as a test?

ianthehenryOP2y ago

Mutation testing is where you make changes to your code's logic as a way to ensure that you have good test coverage for that bit of logic. Mutation testing is helpful with any kind of tests -- assertions, snapshots, whatever -- as a way to check that your tests are actually able to catch interesting bugs, but the idea is orthogonal to this workflow.

trolan2y ago

Have you found any added benefit in your approach using mutation testing?

Really interesting stuff I'm going to play with personally and in school I think. Thank you.

1 more reply

edrx2y ago· 1 in thread

Hey: MANY, MANY, MANY THANKS!!!

I use REPLs in ways that are similar to yours, but 1) you have several tricks that are new to me, and 2) you've been able to put into words many ideas that I haven't!

My way is here,

http://anggtwu.net/eepitch.html

and I'm certainly going to cite you in my presentation in the next EmacsConf! =)

abecedarius2y ago

While we're at this: https://github.com/darius/halp -- I came up with it 16 years ago and still use it.

Example of use: the ## comments and #. outputs in https://github.com/darius/sturm/blob/master/tictactoe.py#L20...

(It'll need a Python 3 update if you're more up with the times than me.)

gjvc2y ago· 1 in thread

I mean that you can write programs that edit their own source code.

Like smalltalk.

nsonha2y ago

or a computer virus :)

giraffe_lady2y ago

This is cool, I'm going to start trying it. I noticed elixir's doctests a few weeks ago and it seems like a partially related idea. It's not quite the same thing but I could see a formalization like them being the "other half" of the blog post's approach for a team.

jacknews2y ago

This is great, especially the more graphic tests, and timely as I'm enjoying learning Janet.

This works for regression tests, and documentation, but not so much for something like TDD, where the test is more like (or should be) a specification for the program you are about to write.

appleflaxen2y ago

Dude you are living in the matrix - in the best way possible. I love your post!

schemescape2y ago

Has anyone ported this workflow to Common Lisp yet?

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