Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Daegalus 440 days ago
I really like Crystal, but I am too dependent on LSPs and such for productivity, and the Crystal LSP leaves a lot to be desired, even though it is fantastic work for what it is.

Can't rely on AI either, as it constantly confuses it with Ruby.

I did do a few backend/server code challenges and advent code in Crystal. It worked really well and was very powerful.

I would love to write my MMO server in it, but again, tooling is still a sore spot for me.
3 comments
runjake 440 days ago
> I really like Crystal, but I am too dependent on LSPs and such for productivity, and the Crystal LSP leaves a lot to be desired, even though it is fantastic work for what it is. Can't rely on AI either, as it constantly confuses it with Ruby.

My initial thoughts when reading this statement were pretty negative, but thinking about it, you're onto something. If the language doesn't function well with today and tomorrow's prevalent and emerging development trends, it's probably not going to see truly significant momentum.

Nonetheless, I still find Crystal remarkable and elegant, with a great standard library.

link
Daegalus 440 days ago
Oh, I 100% agree with you. I love the stdlib and the language. Doing the few things I did in Crystal were so pleasant and a joy to work with. Maybe I'm too reliant on the crutches that I am uses to. It's not that I can't work without them, I just feel like why waste the time.

I will say, as a primarily Go dev, I have been really spoiled by the Go toolset and features.

link
nobodywasishere 440 days ago
Relevant post on why Crystal doesn't have good tooling currently

https://forum.crystal-lang.org/t/why-isnt-there-an-lsp-for-c...

link
Daegalus 440 days ago
Thank you, I actually am aware of the post and follow all the projects with hope they succeed.
link
npn 440 days ago
>Can't rely on AI either, as it constantly confuses it with Ruby.

I'm currently using github copilot with claude 3.7, mostly for auto complete, work pretty well although sometimes it does return ruby variant of the code (it call the ruby methods that not existing in crystal)

but for my use case, copilot works pretty well.

link