[draklor40]

``` breaking things up into small isolated components that can be reasoned about independently ``` - This is insufficient for the same reasons unit tests are not enough and you also need integration tests. The moment you cross namespace boundaries, you will end up not setting keys /entries in maps , missing logic etc and end up needing something like Spec/Schema....

[yogthos]

Sure, and my team uses Spec at component boundaries to define APIs for that reason. I actually prefer this approach to static typing because it makes it possible to add a specification at the level where it provides the most value, and it's much easier to express semantic constraints using this approach.

It does take more discipline to work with a dynamic language, but once you develop a process then it can be very effective. It's also worth noting that immutable by default plays a huge role here. With Clojure it's natural to create truly isolated components while it takes a lot more discipline in an imperative language where things are passed by reference creating implicit coupling.

[mumblemumble]

> you will end up not setting keys /entries in maps

This is what I run into. But that's not exactly a dynamic language problem. It's more of a data-oriented programming (in the Clojure sense) problem.

I'm coming to the opinion that data-oriented programming techniques only make sense inside a fairly tightly bounded context. One that's small enough that you can see and understand the whole thing at once. As soon as you've got ad-hoc data structures crossing logical boundaries, you lose the ability to keep track of it all, and it becomes very difficult to ensure everyone's interacting with these ad-hoc types in a compatible manner.

Incidentally, this is also exactly why I dislike JSON for APIs. I'd much rather share data across boundaries using data structures with explicit, nominal, static types. Like what you get in gRPC.

Anyway, my Clojure experience is limited, but I think this is why I have an easier time letting Python code get big than I did Clojure. With Python, I've got myself into some problems with data oriented programming, too. But with Python, it was easy (and idiomatic) to walk that back and switch to using dataclasses.

[draklor40]

> This is what I run into. But that's not exactly a dynamic language problem. It's more of a data-oriented programming (in the Clojure sense) problem.

Yes, all dynamic languages have this problem. I have transitioned to statically typed languages and it has been very peaceful so far :)