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by nottorp 443 days ago
> those small, quick-to-make dynamic codebases ended up becoming unmaintainable monstrosities

In my experience, type checking / type hinting already starts to pay off when more than one person is working on an even small-ish code base. Just because it helps you keep in mind what comes/goes to the other guy's code.
2 comments
lolinder 443 days ago
And in my experience "me 3 months later" counts as a whole second developer that needs accommodating. The only time I appreciate not having to think about types is on code that I know I will never, ever come back to—stuff like a one off bash script.
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wesselbindt 442 days ago
> "me 3 months later" counts as a whole second developer

A fairly incompetent one, in my experience. And don't even get me started on "me 3 months ago", that guy's even worse.

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nottorp 442 days ago
"How has that shit ever worked?"

Me, looking at code 100% written by me last year.

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baq 442 days ago
It gets worse with age and size of the project. I’m getting the same vibes, but for code written by me last month.
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guskel 443 days ago
Yep, I've seen type hinting even be helpful without a type checker in python. Just as a way for devs to tell each other what they intend on passing. Even when a small percent of the hints are incorrect, having those hints there can still pay off.
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