Q1: Is the Custom Module Workflow Professional & Are There Missing/Improper Steps? #

Your current workflow is mostly aligned with Julia's recommended practices for local module development—great call using activate to isolate your project environment and dev to track your local module! That said, there are a few tweaks to make it more robust and production-ready:

• Double-check module metadata files: When you ran generate MyModule, Julia should have created a Project.toml and Manifest.toml in MyProject/src/MyModule. These files are critical for managing dependencies and versioning consistency. If they’re missing (unlikely with the generate command), re-run ]generate MyModule to create them—they ensure your module behaves the same across different environments.
• Add a testing suite: Professional module development relies on automated tests to catch regressions. Create a test directory inside MyProject/src/MyModule, add a runtests.jl file with test cases (using Julia’s built-in Test module), and run tests with ]test MyModule from your activated project environment. This gives you confidence that changes don’t break existing functionality.
• Include documentation strings: Add docstrings to your functions and module to make usage clearer for others (and future you!). For example:

  module MyModule
  export greet, myfunc
  
  """
      greet()
  
  Print "Hello World!" to the console.
  """
  greet() = print("Hello World!")
  
  """
      myfunc()
  
  Print a greeting from MyModule and return nothing.
  """
  function myfunc()
      print("hi from MyModule")
      return nothing
  end
  end # module
  

  You can access these docs anytime with ?greet in the Julia REPL.
• Optional: Explicit precompilation: While Julia precompiles modules on first use, running ]precompile MyModule after activating your project ensures precompilation is done upfront, which is helpful for shared or production environments.

Q2: Do I Have to Restart Julia to Load Module Changes? #

Restarting Julia is not required—the Revise.jl package was built specifically to eliminate this tedious step during iterative development. Here’s how to set it up and use it:

1. Install Revise in your MyProject environment:

   ]activate .
   ]add Revise
   

2. Load Revise before your module every time you start Julia:

   using Revise
   using MyModule
   

3. Make changes to MyModule.jl: Save your edits, and Revise will automatically detect the changes and reload the modified parts of the module in the background. You can immediately test the updated functions in the REPL or re-run your playground.jl without restarting.

Pro Tip: Auto-load Revise on Startup #

To avoid typing using Revise every time, add it to your Julia startup script:

• Create or edit ~/.julia/config/startup.jl (on Windows, this is %USERPROFILE%\.julia\config\startup.jl)
• Add the line: using Revise

Now every Julia session will load Revise automatically, making iterative development even smoother.

Note: Revise handles most common changes (function body edits, new functions, docstring updates) seamlessly. For major structural changes (like renaming the module itself or modifying the export list in a way that breaks existing references), you may still need to restart—but these cases are rare during day-to-day development.

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者TylerD