> And a REPL wasn't necessary because Go compiled so quickly you could just write a program and run it (no, that misses the point of a repl, which is that it builds up state and lets you call new functions with that built-up state).
He'd have had a point if the go compiler could reliably compile programs in faster than 50-100ms. The claims that go is a fast compiler always seem to be relative to c++ or something. Last time I checked just compiling hello world took over 200ms which was shocking to me given how I'd heard that one of the language's claims to fame was a fast compiler.
Thing is, there are several REPLs for Go. That we have quite a few comments pretending that Go doesn't have a REPL comes as a direct result of nobody – that is, beyond the REPL authors wanting to scratch an itch – ever needing one. After all, if a REPL was necessary, the people commenting that Go doesn't have a REPL would know that Go has a REPL as they would be users.
He'd have had a point if the go compiler could reliably compile programs in faster than 50-100ms. The claims that go is a fast compiler always seem to be relative to c++ or something. Last time I checked just compiling hello world took over 200ms which was shocking to me given how I'd heard that one of the language's claims to fame was a fast compiler.