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Ask HN: What are some well-designed REPLs?

by avindroth on 10/26/23, 3:27 AM with 3 comments

• by denvaar on 10/26/23, 4:17 AM

  I don't know if it technically qualifies as a REPL[1], but I really enjoy Elixir's interactive console, IEx. What I like about it:

  - Tab completion (obviously). Not only for functions/modules/bindings that are in scope, but also when you're in a string and begin typing a path, it will complete the directory names and stuff.

  - You can type "h" before a module or function name to read the docs. Similarly, you can do the same with "t" to see type information.

  - History of what you've executed, and also a reverse history search feature.

  - Not fully "readline compatible", but some basic, standard key bindings work.

  - Plenty of handy helper functions.[2]

  [1] https://ferd.ca/repl-a-bit-more-and-less-than-that.html

  [2] https://hexdocs.pm/iex/1.13/IEx.Helpers.html

• by uticus on 10/26/23, 2:27 PM

  Ruby's IRB has always been nice to work with: https://github.com/ruby/irb#commands

  Of course LISP is the example to look at with REPL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Read%E2%80%93eval%E2%80%93prin...

  ...esp with Emacs: https://slime.common-lisp.dev/

• by stop50 on 10/26/23, 4:55 AM

  I like bpython. An extension of pythons repl