This seems like one of those "sounds good on paper" ideas, like shells that pipe objects. In practice, file and process oriented systems are separate from REPL systems on purpose.
The most important property of a filesystem or the Unix-style pipes&filters that permeate them is the fact that serialization is a fundamental property component of persistence and communication. Any finite quantity of space can be addressed by a linear scheme and any unbounded sequence is inherently linear. Consider what happens as soon as you want to send a stream of data across the wire. Or checkpoint an operation. You need to store stuff in a non-volatile and linear form. And since data outlives code, you better invest time into thinking about that linear form.
Now, if you use immutable data structures (ie. non-cyclical) with a proper linearization and corresponding reader/printer (like in Clojure), you can get many of the same benefits, but you still need to have a whole bunch of other things to worry about. Just look at the weird things that Clojure needs to do with print-dup and the like.
I'm not saying that there isn't a kernel of a good idea in here. I'm just saying that it's going to have a lot more in common with filesystems and traditional shells than you'd first expect coming from a Lisp REPL school of thought.
The most important property of a filesystem or the Unix-style pipes&filters that permeate them is the fact that serialization is a fundamental property component of persistence and communication. Any finite quantity of space can be addressed by a linear scheme and any unbounded sequence is inherently linear. Consider what happens as soon as you want to send a stream of data across the wire. Or checkpoint an operation. You need to store stuff in a non-volatile and linear form. And since data outlives code, you better invest time into thinking about that linear form.
Now, if you use immutable data structures (ie. non-cyclical) with a proper linearization and corresponding reader/printer (like in Clojure), you can get many of the same benefits, but you still need to have a whole bunch of other things to worry about. Just look at the weird things that Clojure needs to do with print-dup and the like.
I'm not saying that there isn't a kernel of a good idea in here. I'm just saying that it's going to have a lot more in common with filesystems and traditional shells than you'd first expect coming from a Lisp REPL school of thought.