Comment by weberc2

I think this is a matter of personal preference. At work my primary language is Python and I rarely use the REPL, and when I do, it's a regrettable experience--can't use up arrow to get previous command, can't use arrow keys to move cursor, entering tabs after the `. . .` makes it hard to figure out how many tabs to enter, etc. And of course you can't visualize the whole "program" at a glance like you can in a text editor. Not sure if Python's REPL is just subpar among repls or if I just don't understand how to leverage REPLs for my benefit, but `$EDITOR /tmp/foo.py` just works so much better for me.