I really like working in PHP but I'd actually agree that edit;reload is a virtue of the language (in the environment everyone normally assumes it's running in) that is losing value.

This virtue was incredibly valuable to me when I was throwing a website together with ducttape and bubble gum and it was the only way (that I knew of) to be able to clearly and quickly see the results of my changes. With tests in the picture I think it loses a lot of that value - it still has some since nobody likes writing front-end tests but most of your code changes should be "proven" by some level of automated test coverage.

Oh, you were asking about benefits that you can easily relate to.

Well, in that case then you'd be in a much better position to answer than I am.

> I think the difference is I write tests. I usually code everything while writing/running tests. Then it always works the first time I run it, so there’s no need for “edit; reload”.

I write tests, too. I guess I'm not as good of a software developer - because just as my code has bugs and unexpected edge cases, so do my tests, and they don't catch every mistake I made, since I'm the one making them.