What's a good way to run Javascript Interactively?

Question

For Ruby, we have irb. For Python, we have IDLE. For Javascript, is Firebug or Chrome on a blank page the best way to run or test Javascript interactively?

Possible duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/822071/interactive-javascript-console-preferably-integrated-with-firebug — Vivin Paliath, Jul 01 '10 at 23:21

alex · Answer 1 · 2010-07-01T23:49:06.077

6

You can also visit JSBin or JSFiddle.

On the iPhone, there is JSanywhere (it seems written by a Japanese author).

There is not much information about it on Google in English, but it can be downloaded for free from the App Store.

edited Jul 01 '10 at 23:49

answered Jul 01 '10 at 23:18

alex

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JSBin and JSFiddle are really nice too. JSConsole might be closer to an interactive console like irb or IDLE. – nonopolarity Jul 03 '10 at 14:07
JSBin worked for me to run just JS code without HTML, but JSFiddle didn't – knocte Sep 16 '15 at 13:25

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

5

In addition to the alternatives already mentioned by @alex:

On the browser:

JSConsole (excellent for workshops)
JHP

_{Both with basic auto-completion.}

Standalone consoles:

JSDB (SpiderMonkey based)
Rhino

edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

Community

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answered Jul 01 '10 at 23:28

Christian C. Salvadó

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JSConsole is really good because it can show the whole object's content, like Ruby's inspect() or what is shown in irb – nonopolarity Jul 03 '10 at 14:06
You could also use `node-repl` or Apple's `jsc`, if you're on a Mac. I have a little bit more on my blog: http://www.bubblefoundry.com/blog/2009/09/javascript-console/ – pr1001 Nov 10 '10 at 10:51

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 20 '13 at 18:18

As of 2013, there is a good comparison of the available options here:

http://www.sitepoint.com/7-code-playgrounds/

Also interesting:

http://css-tricks.com/forums/topic/codepen-jsfiddle-jsbin/#post-134290

Tldr;

Codepen may be the "best-looking feature-packed playground". Seems to be under constant development; strong on social features.
JSBin appears to be the only option offering a real interactive console.
Details matter; the discussion in the CSS Tricks forum (see above) is particularly helpful in that regard.

joeytwiddle · Answer 4 · 2011-05-11T21:38:41.280

The 'shell' and 'jsenv' bookmarklets from squarefree work well:

https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/webdevel.html

I prefer to use a bookmarklet so I can work in the environment of the current page.

Firebug addicts can use Firebug Light in other browsers: http://getfirebug.com/firebuglite

However nothing beats the modern browser built-in debuggers for:

error messages from timeouts
line numbers of errors
addings breakpoints
live scope inspection

What's a good way to run Javascript Interactively?

4 Answers4