from Hacker News

Opinion: Repl.it is for newbies and it's misleading

by arthtyagi on 10/15/20, 6:03 PM with 2 comments

From my own experience, I've found repl.it extremely misleading on their end when they claim to cater both beginners and advanced users. I really don't see how anyone manages to build a project using repl.it. All repl.it is doing ( it's not about remote code dev, VSCode has that plus it's got LiveShare too ) is hindering the learning process of new developers by depriving them of tools like vim, tmux and other such tools that make them way more productive.

  • by rednafi on 10/21/20, 9:08 PM

    I think you are wrong (2).

    Tools are just tools and I've seen many senior engineers who are extremely efficient at what they do—absolutely despise vim/emacs or any other terminal based text editors. They feel more efficient in Sublime/VScode/Pycharm/Webstorm/IntelliJ/Goland etc. They only use vim/tmux only when it's absolutely necessary.

    Many beginners just give up when they can't configure these tools around a language properly. I think "repl.it" gives these people a hasslefree way to dip into a language ecosystem and see whether they like it or not.

    Once the user has some familiarity with the language and the toolings around it, they make their own decisions regarding whether replit caters their needs or not.

  • by andymoe on 10/15/20, 6:19 PM

    I think you’re wrong. A great many people newly introduced to programming give up after struggle to get past tooling and never get to that magical aha moment where they’ve had the satisfaction of building something successfully.

    Also, our tools are not evolving fast enough. While tmux and vim are useful they do not represent any new advancement in productivity and complexity reduction which this industry really really needs.