Except the original Lisp and Smalltalk environments are much more than a simple ...

est · on July 9, 2013

For me "more-than-REPL" just looks like a code visualization tool where you can jump between symbolics. Mouse sensitive images looks just like a prototype of AutoCAD

screenshot if anyone is interested.

http://i.imgur.com/FjaDFgi.png

http://i.imgur.com/sGNN3la.png

Bret Victor's work is much, much more impressive, you can change variable values and see results in realtime. In that Mario game example, you can see Mario's trajectory and adjust values to see how physical parameters affect the height and distance Mario can jump, and modify gravity ticking equation to see Mario jump & walking up-side-down.

pjmlp · on July 9, 2013

I am not saying his work is not great, far from it.

What I mean is that these ideas were already present in such environments.

The "more-than-REPL" stated by me, means that these environments allowed for an interactive type of work that went further than a simple textual REPL.

Many young HN readers tend to associate REPL to the pure REPL textual version they have access to, while using vi and emacs on their UNIX boxes.

_19qg · on July 11, 2013

You could do that on a Lisp Machine, too. Symbolics sold a complete interactive animation and game development system. Nintendo used it in the early years. The software later got ported.