This library provides the Emacs built-in “C-x C-e” behaviour for arbitrary languages, provided they have a REPL shell command. ============================Benefits=============================== Whenever reading/refactoring some code, if you can make some of it self-contained, then you can immediately try it out! No need to load your entire program; nor copy-paste into an external REPL. The benefits of Emacs' built-in “C-x C-e” for Lisp, and Lisp's Repl Driven Development philosophy, are essentially made possible for arbitrary languages (to some approximate degree, but not fully). Just as “C-u C-x C-e” inserts the resulting expression at the current cursour position, so too all repl-driven-development commands allow for a C-u prefix which inserts the result. This allows for a nice scripting experience where results are kept for future use. ===============================Official Manual======================== See http://alhassy.com/repl-driven-development “C-h o repl-driven-development” also has extensive docs, via a JavaScript server example. ===============================Mini-Tutorial========================== Often, while reading a README file, we will (1) copy a shell command, (2) open a terminal, and (3) paste the shell command to run it. We can evaluate arbitrary regions in a shell in one step via “C-x C-t” with: (repl-driven-development [C-x C-t] "bash") For example, execute “C-x C-t” anywhere on each line below and see results in an overlay, right by your cursor. echo "It is $(date) and I am at $PWD, my name is $(whoami) and I have: $(ls)" say "My name is $(whoami) and I like Emacs" Notice as each line is sent to the Bash process, the line is highlighted briefly in yellow. Moreover, you can hover over the text to see a tooltip with the resulting shell output. Finally, if you invoke “C-h k C-x C-t” you get help about this new “C-x C-t” command, such as inserting results at point via “C-u C-x C-t” or to reset/refresh the current Bash process with “C-u -1 C-x C-t”. This also works for any command-line REPL; for example, for Python: (repl-driven-development [C-x C-p] "python3") Then, we can submit the following Python snippets with “C-x C-p” on each line. sum([1, 2, 3, 4]) list(map(lambda i: 'Fizz'*(not i%3)+'Buzz'*(not i%5) or i, range(1,101))) These work fine, however there are some shortcomings of this REPL. For example, echoing results could be prettier and it doesn't handle multi-line input very well. You can address these issues using the various hooks / keyword arguments of the “repl-driven-development” macro. However, this package comes with preconfigured REPLS for: python, terminal, java, javascript. Simply use the name of these configurations: (repl-driven-development [C-x C-p] python) Now we can submit the following, with “C-x C-p”, with no issues: def square(x): return x * x square(5) Since these new REPL commands are just Emacs functions, we can use several at the time, alternating between them. For example: ;; C-x C-e on the next two lines (repl-driven-development [C-x C-t] terminal) (repl-driven-development [C-x C-p] python) echo Hello... > /tmp/o # C-x C-t here print(open("/tmp/o").read()) # C-x C-p here echo ...and bye >> /tmp/o # C-x C-t again print(open("/tmp/o").read()) # C-x C-p again Let's conclude with a GUI example in Java. ;; Set “C-x C-j” to evaluate Java code in a background REPL. (repl-driven-development [C-x C-j] "jshell") // Select this Java snippet, then press “C-x C-j” to evaluate it import javax.swing.*; JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(new JFrame(){{setAlwaysOnTop(true);}}, "Super nice!") We can use a preconfigured Java REPL, to remove the annoying “jshell>” prompt from overlay echos, handle multi-line input, and more. (repl-driven-development [C-x C-j] java) // REPL result values are shown as overlays: // See a list of 23 numbers, which are attached as a tooltip to this text. IntStream.range(0, 23).forEach(x -> System.out.println(x)) For more documentation, and examples, see http://alhassy.com/repl-driven-development