Ask HN: How to build a simple IDE or GUI wrapper for cmd repl?

I've been working on a project to write a wrapper around a python command line repl application, and there seems to be a dearth of (understandable) resources on the proper scaffolding. Dropping down a level to try to write a wrapper around the Python REPL (open a connection, send code to it, and receive the output) has been similarly frustrating. So far I've looked at Python's subprocess, pyzmq, and pty without getting a sense of what needs to be done.

Anyone know of any good resources, and/or could provide some tips?