ipykernel VS public_images

The way I work is to use an interactive IPython REPL. It has a lot of features to make interactive development comfortable. I solve a problem incrementally, attempting to get a little piece of code right many times, changing it a little each time to fix bugs. Then I go back and copypaste the lines into a file and tidy it up a little. Then I go back to IPython and solve the next little stage of the problem. Maybe this style of development will be more fitting for you?

IPython

If you're talking about history in the python shell, you're probably looking for IPython.

For this kind of thing I mostly use Jupyter and the IPython kernel, with data analysis packages like numpy and pandas and matplotlib for charts.

Otherwise you should be able to convert the .ipynb's to .py using the ipython libraries:

Nice product, I noticed that you are updating the next Jupyter cell; what was your solution to doing that reliably since `set_next_input` is so damn flakey?

I personally grew so frustrated with the state of GUI development in Jupyter that I tried to fix it in such a way that would allow proper message passing between cells and python code (because you can't wait on Comm events).

> https://github.com/ipython/ipykernel/pull/589

But sadly the priorities of big open source projects don't always match your own. So I had to extract that logic into my own kernel.

People are all talking about how it's useful for quick stuff with datasets, but it goes far beyond that. It's useful for quick anything you might want a database for. Imagination is the limit.

For example, if any of you play D&D online, you might be familiar with dndbeyond's character sheets. They're a fantastic way to onboard new players who might not have the inclination to spend hours with the rule books before they even start playing. It does all the calculations for you and gives you some buttons for like "roll athletics" and doesn't let you add more spells than your character can have with their stats.

I recently persuaded some friends to give FATE a try and built analogous push-button character sheets with google sheets [0]. It was quick and simple. With conditional formatting, you highlight bad states (rules say you can't have more of X than Y!). With the script editor, you can add full on buttons for dice rolls and other state changes with whatever logic you want (anything you can code up!). Checkboxes are obvious but super useful. And the transparency of the calculations is helpful for teaching people the system (this stat is "min(A4, B1+C5)").

To build a stateful, database backed, live collaborative GUI that can be added to and customized without google sheets would have been a serious endeavor. With it, it was a quick fun afternoon hack. Excel/google sheets is an amazing piece of technology.

[0] Screenshot of the "app": https://github.com/imh/public_images/blob/main/Screen%20Shot...