What do I mean? sbcl
forces to write a long command line just to run a program from the command line and exit. Arc was not better and could not execute a program directly. I added this functionality to the Arc git repository myself.
No, the REPL won’t be gone in spark, and good old (load)
will still be there. But you can also do:
$ cat hello.spark (say "Hello World!") $ spark hello.spark Hello World! $
Or put /usr/bin/env spark or whatever in your sha-bang and it will work.
A spark program will do its thing, execute to the finish and gracefully exit.
We will still have a REPL, that can be used from the command-line or from within Emacs SLIME or within IDEs such as Eclipse. Even Vim/gvim may get a REPL if it gets something like an embedded shell like Emacs has.
Spark programs can be abstract syntax trees, a network of objects, some compiled bytecode or flying unicorn ponies who drop candy. Nevertheless, they are still read from text. If you want to change the state of REPL until you forget what it has now or it changes unbeknowest to you (“Parallelism!!!!”) it’s an option. But you can still write your tests, run, debug, change, run debug, etc. Hopefully with automated tests for extra bonus points in Software Management sainthood.