Not OP but I often code in the REPL for python as well. Sometimes I'll stub out my code and just drop into an interactive debugger where I'm writing the next s

Not OP but I often code in the REPL for python as well. Sometimes I'll stub out my code and just drop into an interactive debugger where I'm writing the next section. In the python debugger, if you type `interact`, it'll give you the normal python repl. This combined with the `help` and `dirs` are super useful for learning new frameworks/libraries and coding with your actual data.