Exit IEx Gracefully with `respawn()`

I love a debugger in my Elixir code. A pattern I follow is to load and call IEx in a Phoenix template or controller with:

require IEx; IEx.pry;

Then, I call functions and check data in the middle of an action, by starting my Phoenix server with the following command:

$ iex -S mix phx.server

Once finished, I usually end up just killing the server with CTRL-C.

Today I learned there's a better way: respawn().

respawn() respawns the current shell by starting a new shell process. Which I think is a good thing. It lets me back out of my IEx session without killing my server, a much more graceful development experience.