Link from 'TiN -> Immutable Variables' to Variables chapter to reduce redundancy

[NotTheDr01ds]

I noticed that the "Thinking in Nu" chapter still had a section discussing the fact that "Variables are immutable" even though we've had mut for some time now.

There's still some useful information in here, as the default should be to use immutables, but it's no longer a "Common surprise" that we don't have mutables.

I've reworded and moved this content to the "Variables" chapter in the Book. I've also consolidated some other info I wrote up in the Language Ref that better fits here.

[fdncred]

It looks to me like all the info in thinking_in_nu.md is still valid but could be clarified by saying, "... from other languages is that Nushell let variables are immutable" and somewhere else we could say mut variables are mutable.

[NotTheDr01ds]

Fair - I was reading it with my "historical" glasses on and the realization that, at the time it was written, we didn't have mut at all (or for/while and others that need mutable variables). It just reads "oddly" to me a bit since it seems to imply that we still don't have mutable variables at all.

It also seemed to me that "Thinking in Nu" was focused on things that might completely trip up users who were used to doing things a different way. While it's still "best practice" to use immutability in Nushell, it's no longer required*.

That said, perhaps it is such an important best practice that it still belongs in the "front matter" (Getting Started -> Thinking in Nu)?

I'll move it back and work on a few tweaks to make it "cleaner".

Any objection to me shortening up the "Thinking in Nu -> Variables are immutable by default" section by making it an "overview" with the detail still in the Variables chapter?

[fdncred]

at the time it was written, we didn't have mut at all

yup, 100% right. it hasn't aged terribly well.

One thing that still fits but may not be talked about much are the things like how it's related more closely to a compiled language like why we have env.nu and config.nu although some of that has changed too because we now have const and we have a growing set of commands that are const. Maybe this is what I'm thinking about too https://www.nushell.sh/book/how_nushell_code_gets_run.html.

Any objection to me shortening up the "Thinking in Nu -> Variables are immutable by default" section by making it an "overview" with the detail still in the Variables chapter?

probably not

[NotTheDr01ds]

Maybe this is what I'm thinking about too

Yup - Given that there are links in both directions (from TiN <-> "How Nushell code gets run"), I think it's up-to-date. And I'm still grokking it a year after first reading it ;-)

As for the Immutable Variables, I refactored it so that the "core concept" is still in "Thinking in Nu" but consolidated the rest of the info and examples into the "Variables" chapter. Let me know if that revision looks okay to you.

[fdncred]

let's move forward with this one and the cookbook one. thanks