I’ve introduced REPL.it into my new job as a teacher, this year.
It is utterly transformative.
Multiplayer, in a COVID classroom, means I can easily help any pupil without having to PPE-up and break into their bubble. At the start of every class I post a google quiz whose sole question is “what is your REPL multiplayer link for this class?”.
I haven’t used many of the other school features for REPL.it. I can think of a few I’d love to see.
Packages are so easy to install. A pupil today told me they’d not really had any luck with their coursework because they couldn’t install textract. A few clicks and they had a poetry enabled repl with textract read to go.
REPL.it has brought about a quantum leap in the way we are working with pupils. It is the epitome of how frictionlessness can make an enormous difference.
Your post got me intrigued, but I couldn't get any multiplayer to work. Does it only work when signed in?
I think it is cool to offer some functionality to guest users, however they should make it clearer what the limitations are so that people evaluating it get a good sense for the features.
I even created an account, which changed my repl to "anyone can edit" to "forks on edit" apparently? But still no multiplayer?
Multiplayer URLs have “join-“ in the path, and are available from the “share” button in the top left.
It would be very handy (and intuitive) if all REPLs were a live read-only window on what the owner was typing. The reload-page-to-get-latest-version thing works, but multiplayer is there and awesome so it seems odd to hide it with a different type of URL that looks almost identical to the regular read-only fork-on-edit one.
Yes for teaching software development it's amazing, and I can even see it being really useful for professionals to demonstrate and discuss ideas.
But I can't imagine it's ever going to replace the IDE or the lowly text-editor, because there isn't a problem that needs solving. Most developers version control their configuration and move it between installations.
Codespaces, repl.it, Glitch, and friends are what the new generation of developers is being brought up on. They're coding on their iPads, Chromebooks, etc. and move between devices regularly. Browsers as a platform just make sense in this new world. These platforms may seem like "toys" now, but if we just look at the trend, it's hard to argue that even the most intensive applications are going to get serious browser-based competitors.
It is utterly transformative.
Multiplayer, in a COVID classroom, means I can easily help any pupil without having to PPE-up and break into their bubble. At the start of every class I post a google quiz whose sole question is “what is your REPL multiplayer link for this class?”.
I haven’t used many of the other school features for REPL.it. I can think of a few I’d love to see.
Packages are so easy to install. A pupil today told me they’d not really had any luck with their coursework because they couldn’t install textract. A few clicks and they had a poetry enabled repl with textract read to go.
REPL.it has brought about a quantum leap in the way we are working with pupils. It is the epitome of how frictionlessness can make an enormous difference.