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Right, except that the repl isn't in another pane; a repl prompt is. Part of the confusion on this point is thinking that the prompt is the repl. It isn't. It'
by mikelevins 4y ago
Right, except that the repl isn't in another pane; a repl prompt is.
Part of the confusion on this point is thinking that the prompt is the repl. It isn't. It's a UI for the repl. The repl is the process that reads, evaluates, and prints, then loops back to do it again.
Nothing about a repl requires there to be a prompt, and not all UIs for repls have them. Interlisp and Smalltalk have relied mainly on promptless UIs for their repls since the 1970s.
When working with Common Lisp, the main UI I use is an Emacs editor buffer and the key bindings that send input directly to the repl (bypassing the prompt). Typing at the prompt is the exception rather than the rule, and I could get along fine if I didn't bother to load the slime-repl contrib that provides it.
- xkriva11 4y agoYes, the evaluation of the code needs to be possible from everywhere. From the REPL window, the code editor, the debugger, and the inspector... Any code you select should be possible to evaluate in place. It is more than four decades old obvious basic idea, and I do not understand why almost everybody ignores it.