[StreamBright]

Well most of the people write code in small chunks that yields to the following workflow:

- write code

- compile & run, see if it works

Just keep repeating this until you achieved what you want.

In REPL this is exactly the same you just have a much faster way of trying out a concept.

I think this is pretty simple to conceptualise.

[shadowmint]

Obviously, but that's not the point I was making.

...but how does that (what you wrote) == "think of programming in Clojure like playing a difficult video game based on trial and error with emulator save states"?

[StreamBright]

- each iteration in the repl is a state that you can preserve ("save")

- playing the vide game is trying out new states

I guess this is what OP was thinking about.

[aarpmcgee]

I've had this same thought while working with immutable data structures. Maybe the author is referring to that.