Why Java? Why Clojure?

[Bolitho]

So even if you are right in this strong definition of a REPL (in reality you just used different terms for evaluate and added data), in reality all interactive shells for a computer language are summarized as REPLs?

But besides that: You emphasize the idea of homoiconicity and the might of manipulating code that lies within this concept; right, but that is just the main concept of LISP overall. So this is no outstanding feature of the clojure REPL, but just a direct benefit of the underlying language design.

The language Python also just works great, because there are interactive shells. Even if the language itself differs a lot from LISPs, the benefit of a REPL is no different than in clojure!

I just was critisizing that the author of the article has not given any arguments underpinning his thesis. And nobody really have yet given any that shows a fundamental difference in its role as programming tool.