[ken]

Just as with the word "developer" [1], I'm beginning to think that the word "refactor" is a dirty word. Are we even talking about the same activity? How is it people are alternately claiming that Haskell and Clojure (virtual opposites on the language spectrum) are infinitely superior to each other at the same thing?

Wikipedia defines it as "the process of restructuring existing computer code without changing its external behavior", which sounds about right, but it's also so completely generic that it could mean almost anything.

Claiming that Clojure can't do 'meaningful refactoring' sounds to me about like claiming that Kanji is bad for transcribing Welsh, or that sign language doesn't work well for audiobooks. They're technically languages but the fundamentals are so different that all the comparisons are talking right past each other.

The style of refactoring that one does in Haskell (disclaimer: it's been many years since I've written any) is not really possible in Clojure, but it's not really necessary, either.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18310958

[Jach]

"Refactoring" has a definitive origin, which is Martin Fowler's Refactoring book from 1999.

Fowler wanted to write the book using Smalltalk, but because the techniques he wanted to write about were fairly language agnostic, he did it in Java, as that was more popular. Unfortunately I think a lot of programmers missed the point, and now think refactoring is only something that can be done well in languages like Java (static typing) and with IDE support.

He's announced a second edition[0] in which he'll use JavaScript, to again prove the point that the techniques matter less than the language (other than sometimes techniques that work for class-based designs aren't as relevant as for function-based designs) and because JS is so popular. I'm not optimistic it will help anyone see the underlying point, but at the very least it might kill the idea that refactoring has to be hard in non-static-typed languages.

[0] https://martinfowler.com/articles/201803-refactoring-2nd-ed....

[wild_preference]

I'd say it comes down to the more standard fare of dynamic vs static typing where the latter has a general advantage in refactoring.

It's true that Clojure has its own perks that aid in refactoring, like how you may have less code altogether. But in my experience it's still a drop in the bucket compared to the zoomed out view of dynamic vs static typing.

For example, could you give some examples that make Clojure particularly good in this regard? I'd have trouble coming up with many that quantify favorably against compile-time analysis. And it would be unfair to take this reality and say "Clojure sucks at refactoring." I think that people do say that is what clouds these discussions where one then needs to point out that Clojure has advantages over other dynamically typed languages which is definitely true.

[lgas]

I never claimed that Clojure can't do meaningful refactoring, and in fact I acknowledged that Clojure gives you great tools for using your own brain to do refactoring. Clojure is my favorite dynamic language and I heartily recommend it to anyone looking for something in that space. It's just that the experience of refactoring (or anything like it -- even just making large changes) in Haskell is massively better than the experience of doing it in Clojure.

[didibus]

> The style of refactoring that one does in Haskell (disclaimer: it's been many years since I've written any) is not really possible in Clojure, but it's not really necessary, either.

You're spot on. It just isn't really necessary to refactor Clojure code. In my many years using it professionally, I didn't have to refactor it once. The code just stays clean, it doesn't need cleaning up. So I find the whole refactoring argument moot. Why does your language lend itself to code that needs to be refactored? Sounds like a disadvantage to me.