I've been thinking about something like this for awhile. I think there's a way to get a version of what you're after.

What I'm planning to do is a write a function that reads in the contents of a text file, line by line, and does an execute() on each line (let's call it readAndExecuteFile). Each line of text will be a statement to set a value in some array, but there's no reason why you couldn't set regular variables this way also.

So, to take the original example, I would run my Acknex program in a window, see that Guy 2 is moving too fast, jump to my editor and change the speed value and save the file, come back to my Acknex window and hit the key or panel button to call the readAndExecuteFile function. What this assumes is that you've got some way to "rewind and replay" a particular moment in your program, or some other way of recreating those conditions that caused the action to occur.

So this would eliminate the need to exit, edit and recompile, but it doesn't all happen in the game window like you were talking about. Having an ingame editor would be great, but it would be a lot more work.

Having said this, I've never actually used the execute() function before. Anybody got any tips or gotchas on this one?