# Feedback needed on improving Emacs inferior-julia

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/feedback-needed-on-improving-emacs-inferior-julia/36317>\
**Category:** Tooling\
**Tags:** repl, emacs\
**Created:** [March 21, 2020, 8:42pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/feedback-needed-on-improving-emacs-inferior-julia/36317 "2020-03-21T20:42:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![non-Jedi](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/non-jedi/32/3645_2.png) [@non-Jedi](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/non-Jedi)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2020, 8:42pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/feedback-needed-on-improving-emacs-inferior-julia/36317/1 "2020-03-21T20:42:07Z")

</div>

I’ve made some improvements to `inferior-julia` Julia REPL packaged with `julia-mode` and would like community feedback on whether pushing further in this direction is worthwhile. My hope is to have a good working Julia REPL out of the box with `julia-mode` so users don’t have to resort to things like [emacs-jupyter](https://github.com/dzop/emacs-jupyter), [ess](https://github.com/emacs-ess/ESS), or [julia-repl](https://github.com/tpapp/julia-repl).

I’d appreciate feedback from anyone who could try out the branch to decide whether its worthwhile to keep on working on this.

[https://github.com/JuliaEditorSupport/julia-emacs/pull/106](https://github.com/JuliaEditorSupport/julia-emacs/pull/106)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PetrKryslUCSD](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/petrkryslucsd/32/215825_2.png) [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 12:30am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/feedback-needed-on-improving-emacs-inferior-julia/36317/2 "2020-03-22T00:30:02Z")

</div>

Could we have it working on Windows, pretty please?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![non-Jedi](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/non-jedi/32/3645_2.png) [@non-Jedi](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/non-Jedi)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 12:49am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/feedback-needed-on-improving-emacs-inferior-julia/36317/3 "2020-03-22T00:49:51Z")

</div>

Sure. If `inferior-julia` doesn’t currently work on `master`, please open an issue on the julia-emacs repo with more detail. If it’s the updates in the linked branch, please comment there with more details.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PetrKryslUCSD](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/petrkryslucsd/32/215825_2.png) [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 12:53am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/feedback-needed-on-improving-emacs-inferior-julia/36317/4 "2020-03-22T00:53:02Z")

</div>

That would be super. The terminal in Emacs has so far been unusable on Windows.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![non-Jedi](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/non-jedi/32/3645_2.png) [@non-Jedi](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/non-Jedi)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 12:54am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/feedback-needed-on-improving-emacs-inferior-julia/36317/5 "2020-03-22T00:54:11Z")

</div>

Let me be clear. I am not testing this on Windows as I don’t use Windows. Supporting Windows should not be difficult, but I won’t know about problems unless you try `inferior-julia` and let me know what the issues are. `comint-mode` upon which inferior-julia and the ess variant are based _should_ be more robust than `julia-repl` based on ansi-term, but I haven’t tested myself to confirm this.

That said, if `julia-repl` still isn’t working well on Windows, that’s a good thing to know as it’s a need inferior-julia might address better than existing solutions. 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 7:08am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/feedback-needed-on-improving-emacs-inferior-julia/36317/6 "2020-03-22T07:08:51Z")

</div>

As I suggested in the issue, I am not sure that julia-emacs is the best place for this. Please consider starting a package.

> [@non-Jedi](#):
>
> decide whether its worthwhile to keep on working on this.

The key question you should consider if it is better to start something new or contribute to an existing package. In particular, I think that @gcv’s

> **[GitHub - gcv/julia-snail: An Emacs development environment for Julia](https://github.com/gcv/julia-snail)**
>
> An Emacs development environment for Julia. Contribute to gcv/julia-snail development by creating an account on GitHub.

is a really good approach.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![4aHxKzD](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/4ahxkzd/32/10833_2.png) [@4aHxKzD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/4aHxKzD)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 4:56pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/feedback-needed-on-improving-emacs-inferior-julia/36317/7 "2020-03-22T16:56:57Z")

</div>

didn’t know of julia-snail, looks promising

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![4aHxKzD](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/4ahxkzd/32/10833_2.png) [@4aHxKzD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/4aHxKzD)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 4:59pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/feedback-needed-on-improving-emacs-inferior-julia/36317/8 "2020-03-22T16:59:58Z")

</div>

If the changes would bring `inferior-julia` closer to `inferior-python` I think that would be very helpful. I have been using `julia-repl` for a while but there are a couple of things that really bother me.