Re:The Case for Nushell
by Per_Bothner on Thursday August 31, 2023 @10:03PM
(#37345937)
Huh? Using a shell interactively is a REPL. REPL means Read-Eval-Print-Loop. That's what you do when you type commands to a bach/zsh/fish/nushell/... prompt.
But it also how you type commands to a gnuplot or Mathematica or APL or Python or Lisp prompt.
Some REPLs have nicer interactive features (such a completion than others). Some REPLs have nicer or more powerful syntax or different data types. But as longs as you have a Read-Eval-Print-Loop it's a REPL.
NuShell might be a great REPL, I don't know, don't really care.
The fact no one uses a REPL as a shell, and there's no demand to add direct exec() to REPLs, demonstrate they're different categories.
Let programming languages do what programming languages are good at. Let shells do what shells are good at. Please do not write programs in a shell. Do not create a half-assed programming language in a shell to encourage people to write programs in said shell.