I wonder if the project devs have thought of putting an instance of this up for the world? There's a solid version of this for ruby (http://tryruby.hobix.com/) I direct people to when they ask about the language, I'd like to see more "try this programming language on the spot" type setups available, it's a shame I can't host them myself.

"Try this programming language on the spot" with wide open public access is something I've been working on recently. I hope you'll like the results when it's released.

http://codepad.org/ does something like that. It seems handy for trying out small bits of code.

I agree. So much so that back when I first saw it last year, I sought out Steven Hazel (codepad.org's creator), and successfully convinced him to join my startup as co-founder at Sauce Labs. Codepad's tech is uber-cool. :-)

The tryruby website is great, especially the tutorial! Wow! All programming languages should have such tutorial interfaces. ;)

I'm actually working on something that will allow people to write these for whatever programming language. And by working, I mean it's in my bank of things to do.

http://shell.appspot.com/ for python

http://ironpython.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Silverli... - for interactive shell for IronPython and IronRuby in Silverlight.