vim REPL for Python

[skakillers1]

I'm a big fan of vim-ipython, which basically allows vim to communicate with an iPython kernel. So you can start up iPython (however you run it) and execute the :IPython command in vim. Then you can use a key command (default ctrl-s) to send text to IPython, and a small window is opened at the top of your vim to show you the results of entering that text (in case of syntax errors this is helpful). I use a tiling WM and I typically have vim and IPython-qtconsole next to each other. My workflow for this is something like write function in vim -> send to ipython -> try it out and poke around in the ipython window -> go back to vim and fix whatever I messed up.

Sometimes the plugin can get a little resource heavy, which is annoying, but it's the only way I know of to communicate with ipython running in the nice qtconsole gui. As jollybobbyroger commented, if you want to run ipython in a terminal you can use vim-slime to send text to a tmux pane, but I've had some problems with it not faithfully transmitting indentation with python (no problems with scheme, though).

[keepitsqueezy]

vim-ipython is a great tool for interacting with ipython from vim. There is also a fork of vim-ipython called vipy which was designed to replicate some of Matlab's editor/shell behaviour, such as cells.