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Ok I know this is a bit of a controversial opinion. But I think the best repl is a Jupiter notebook. And this is also how you should use it. Why? 1. You actual

Ok I know this is a bit of a controversial opinion. But I think the best repl is a Jupiter notebook. And this is also how you should use it. Why? 1. You actually have infinite repls where you can start a new one at any time and you don't have to scroll up to see past progress. 2. Excellent highlighting and autocompletion. 3. You can easily access the documentation of any method. 4. Vast set of extensions.

pjmlp 4y ago
Jupiter notebook is the rediscovery of how Lisp Machines REPL used to work. :) "Symbolics Lisp Machine demo Jan 2013" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk
- lysecret 4y ago
  That is fascinating.
tpoacher 4y ago
You are 100% right! ... It is a controversial opinion!
User23 4y ago
I use org-babel to do much the same thing for non-Lisp languages.
lispm 4y ago
The REPL as such is on its base a relatively primitive thing: it reads an expression from a stream, evaluates the expression, while doing that it prints any side effects and then prints the result. On top of that one can image various user interfaces. * sophisticated text based repls with integrated repl debuggers and things like structure editors: example Interlisp. * graphical REPLs which use a graphics capable stream * presentation-based REPLs like the one from Symbolics Dynamic Windows or CLIM (the Common Lisp interface manager) * rich structure browser REPLs like the one from Apply Dylan * REPLs inside a text editor UI * REPLs inside an IDE Then there is also the Notebook user interface, which was mostly developed around interactive mathematics software with visualization features. Mathematica made it popular (there were a few earlier systems with similar ideas). It adds a notebook-based graphical user interface with 2d and 3d graphics. It also usually makes it kind of persistent -> one can store and reopen saved Notebooks. No wonder that it is popular in areas where data visualization and maths is important. I haven't seen it used outside of that area that much, though.

pjmlp 4y ago

Jupiter notebook is the rediscovery of how Lisp Machines REPL used to work. :) "Symbolics Lisp Machine demo Jan 2013" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk

lysecret 4y ago
That is fascinating.

tpoacher 4y ago

You are 100% right! ... It is a controversial opinion!

User23 4y ago

I use org-babel to do much the same thing for non-Lisp languages.

lispm 4y ago

The REPL as such is on its base a relatively primitive thing: it reads an expression from a stream, evaluates the expression, while doing that it prints any side effects and then prints the result. On top of that one can image various user interfaces. * sophisticated text based repls with integrated repl debuggers and things like structure editors: example Interlisp. * graphical REPLs which use a graphics capable stream * presentation-based REPLs like the one from Symbolics Dynamic Windows or CLIM (the Common Lisp interface manager) * rich structure browser REPLs like the one from Apply Dylan * REPLs inside a text editor UI * REPLs inside an IDE Then there is also the Notebook user interface, which was mostly developed around interactive mathematics software with visualization features. Mathematica made it popular (there were a few earlier systems with similar ideas). It adds a notebook-based graphical user interface with 2d and 3d graphics. It also usually makes it kind of persistent -> one can store and reopen saved Notebooks. No wonder that it is popular in areas where data visualization and maths is important. I haven't seen it used outside of that area that much, though.