What are the disadvantages of using the Perl debugger vs a real REPL like Devel::REPL?

Question

I usually use perl -de 42 for obtaining an interactive Perl shell. I have seen Devel::REPL and I have seen some blogs like http://www.xenoterracide.com/2010/07/making-repl-usable.html explaining how you can enhance Devel::REPL with the plugins, but I have not used yet.

Is it too bad to use the debugger as an interactive shell? Why?

Note: the disadvantages mentioned in this PerlMonks node were limitations of the user, not of the Perl debugger.

Where can I read more about Perl REPL?

Is Devel::REPL ready for the limelight?

UPDATE: I accepted the Pedro's answer because it answered the question that I asked, but still I would like to know when and why (if any) the use of the Perl debugger as an interactive shell is a bad idea compared with one of the Perl REPL implementations. And which Perl REPL do you prefer?

Answer 1

One disadvantage of perl -d is that lexical variables immediately go out of scope. Example:

DB<1> my $p = 123;

DB<2> print $p;

DB<3>

From perldebug:

Note that the said eval is bound by an implicit scope. As a result any newly introduced lexical variable or any modified capture buffer content is lost after the eval. The debugger is a nice environment to learn Perl, but if you interactively experiment using material which should be in the same scope, stuff it in one linescope, stuff it in one line.

Answer 2

Rather than use the debugger and miss out on features, I tend to use just

perl -wnE'say eval()//$@'

I've used Devel::REPL and like it, but just never got used to using it.

An advantage to using the debugger is being able to have $DB::single=1 to stop and single-step at a given point.