The difference between the Lisp REPL and other, Algol-based programming shells (Node, Python, Ruby etc.) is in the R which stands for Read. The Reader is unique

The difference between the Lisp REPL and other, Algol-based programming shells (Node, Python, Ruby etc.) is in the R which stands for Read. The Reader is unique to Lisp since Lisp syntax approximates to an Abstract Syntax whereas other language shells have to parse syntax as raw source code during this first stage. The Eval stage is also different with Lisps.