Ocaml is not one of those environments. The repl is of limited value in ocaml as the language is not dynamic enough to use it. Much of the language is built on

Ocaml is not one of those environments. The repl is of limited value in ocaml as the language is not dynamic enough to use it. Much of the language is built on its module system and the repl requires one to write an entire module and (it’s signature) at once. This makes the repl very much inferior to compiled ocaml. The article suggests that the repl is of use for finding the type of things. This is only half true. Consider the following: type 'a my_extra_args = foo -> bar -> 'a val some_fn : (int -> unit) my_extra_args Now suppose you want to know the type of the function so you ask at the repl: utop> some_fn;; val - : (int -> unit) my_extra_args And now if you want to know how to call this function you need to try to guess arguments until a type error expands the type. Alternatively you could use compiled ocaml, write your programs in a sensible editor and then query the type using Merlin (a program to provide ide-like features to editors for ocaml) On the other hand, I would expect a Common Lisp tutorial to talk about the repl as real world programs are written with the repl (but also in files)