How do we even node?

notes.txt

# How do we even node?

A story of us trying to node:

1. Use node's debugger to interact with a test spec running under jasmine-node

    $ node debug /Users/username/.nvm/versions/node/v4.1.1/lib/node_modules/jasmine-node/lib/jasmine-node/cli.js hamming_test.spec.js

Note: debugger is in hamming.js but debugger could also be in cli.js,
hamming_test.spec.js, or any other file that is loaded.

2. in the debugger we can use javascript and we can use node specific debug
commands. but at this step can't interact with the code at the breakpoint
as loaded. for instance the variable differences should be defined but when
evaluated it returns `ReferenceError: differences is not defined\n at repl:1:1`.
3. when we type in the `repl` command, we can then interact with code at the
breakpoint as loaded.

this doesn't meet our expectations because we would expect the repl behavior
to exist at step 2.

is this expectation wrong or is this just how you node?