> The simplest way to understand this is to realize that you are basically living "inside" the running exe that you're writing.
Ah. Given what I already know, it sounds a lot like opening up a Python REPL, importing all the code you need, and then starting the main loop of the program.
> You're looking through a glass.
Heh, through debugger-colored glasses. :)
I see what you mean though. With C++, if you find your problem, you stop the whole show, go back to your source, take a stab at a fix, recompile, and then run once again in the debugger. With Lisp, you're just there the whole time.
Exactly. And as a consequence of this both Lisp and Smalltalk allow you to restart from exceptions. Lisp has an extremely sophisticated method (most powerful of any language imo) called "restarts". These make it a lot easier to build much more robust software than it is without them. http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/beyond-exception-handling-co...
Ah. Given what I already know, it sounds a lot like opening up a Python REPL, importing all the code you need, and then starting the main loop of the program.
> You're looking through a glass.
Heh, through debugger-colored glasses. :)
I see what you mean though. With C++, if you find your problem, you stop the whole show, go back to your source, take a stab at a fix, recompile, and then run once again in the debugger. With Lisp, you're just there the whole time.