[jolmg]

> Having `exit` or `quit` without the parens work might accommodate some people whose first choice isn't to call a function (I guess because they're thinking of the REPL as a shell?),

In ruby, parentheses are optional for function calls. `exit` is a regular call, not some REPL peculiarity.

EDIT: Nevermind. Just found that despite the `exit` method being already defined, both irb and pry overshadow that with a repl command that does the same thing. Maybe it's so that it can't be redefined.