Ask HN: What "developer holy war" have you flip-flopped on?

3 meowface 9 8/14/2025, 10:30:33 PM

Vim vs. Emacs, tabs vs. spaces, Mac vs. Linux, static vs. dynamic typing, JSON vs. YAML... what big divide have you switched sides on?

Comments (9)

0x445442 · 2h ago

Weak/Dynamic vs. Strong/Static typing.

I used to complain about the latter then I grew up.

aristofun · 51m ago

Scala is not that bad. It’s still bad and overkill for most people and most projects, but not that bad for some

incomingpain · 13m ago

>Vim vs. Emacs,

Nano has always won. Yes, vim is everywhere. I dont fathom why emacs exists.

>tabs vs. spaces

tabs make much more sense. python should fix this mistake. I guess my IDE fixes it for me?

>Mac vs. Linux,

100% linux; i tend to stick to the debian field, but certainly never actual debian. I really need to try alma; but dnf/yum/rpm and what the hell happened to centos? fedora is a mess like it always was. KDE? really we havent found one of the dozens of better DE?

>static vs. dynamic typing

Dynamic, ill never ever switch to a language that's static. I started in C++, never ever going back.

>JSON vs. YAML

JSON all the way.

meowface · 2h ago

Font ligatures. Used to hate them with a burning passion. Now they're table stakes for trying different fonts.

jjgreen · 2h ago

Change of heart due to the æsthetics?

stop50 · 1h ago

for me it helps especially with comparisons. Some operators are also better looking than their non ligature equivalents.

meowface · 2h ago

Basically, yes.

al_borland · 57m ago

I moved from tabs to spaces.

cpburns2009 · 33m ago

I don't think so, Al.