[Edu-sig] interactive vs compiled from file

[kirby urner]

On 8/3/07, Michael Tobis <mtobis at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks, Dethe, that's very nice, and also thanks for your signature,
> which is thought provoking indeed.
>
> Does anyone agree with me about the didactic value of this change?
>
> mt

If you put duct tape over the snake's mouth in shell mode,
students might discover they miss the REPL, which helps
motivate a sense of why so many successful languages
(LISP, Scheme, APL, J... xBase) have such a mode.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REPL

(note:  this article suggests not confusing REPL with "an
interpreter" citing Python in particular).

Asked what about Python most drew them in, many newbies
cite shell mode (e.g. iPython, IDLE, PyCrust, DrPython or whatever).

-- Kirby

Another project in the Crunchy genre?
http://projects.amor.org/misc/wiki/HTTPREPL