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

3 meowface 7 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 (7)

aristofun · 16m ago

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

0x445442 · 1h ago

Weak/Dynamic vs. Strong/Static typing.

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

meowface · 1h ago

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

jjgreen · 1h ago

Change of heart due to the æsthetics?

stop50 · 59m ago

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

meowface · 1h ago

Basically, yes.

al_borland · 22m ago

I moved from tabs to spaces.

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

Comments (7)