I'm on OS X using TextMate, which is fantastic (though €40 / US$50). I quickly modified the Scheme language bundle into an Arc language bundle--it's not perfect, but it's OK. For the REPL, I'm using an Input Manager called "Visor" for the Terminal, which puts a slide-down (tabbed!) Terminal window on a hotkey.
Visor sounds interesting. What sort of interaction is there between TM & the REPL? Do you have commands like "send defun to repl" and "send file to repl"?
No, just (load "~/Arc/deriv.arc") in the REPL (which suffices). I imagine I could hook something up with AppleScript... hmm, having problems accessing the tabs of the sliding window. If I could, then "send file to REPL" would be
on loadFile(fileName)
tell application "Visor Terminal" to ¬
do script "(load \" & POSIX path to fileName & "\") ¬
in current tab of window id -1
end sub
, assuming that the REPL was in the active tab. Well, if I can get that to work, I'll tell you.
Visor was written by the guy who wrote Quicksilver, and is similarly excellent. It's a bit tricky to get working on Leopard, but it's worth it.
I'm pretty stuck on Emacs for Lisp stuff, but interfacing with a REPL from TM would be a step closer for me to give it a shot. Understanding s-exps is next on the list.
I'll have to read more on Visor (or just try it). It doesn't look too interesting at a glance since iTerm is already a Cmb-tab away. There must be more to it that I'm missing.
I prefer Visor for a few reasons. First, I just prefer Terminal to iTerm (especially now that it has tabs). Second, F3 (my hotkey) always gets me Visor; cmd-tab may take more or less key presses depending on what apps I've been using. Third, since I set Visor up to use a different Terminal which runs in the background, so that's one less app to cmd-tab past. Mostly, it's a convenience thing-one F3, and always one F3.
