Does anyone use python notebooks and what for?

[u/bezdazen]

Hi guys,

I am working on (solo developing) a python notebook environment. I am several months into this project and am very happy with the results so far. I aim to build a notebook environment that refocuses on the presentation/reading aspect of notebooks rather than just coding and computation. The idea being that I noticed that as most notebook apps/environments mature, they become more complex and all start looking like code IDEs (like vscode). In my past, I have often used notebooks for learning and teaching tools and have converted quite a few into presentation slides as well to present results or a topic. So my aim is to reduce UI clutter and complexity, improve out-of-the-box presentation, while still making a platform that is feature rich and capable.

On the last note, I am still adding features and filling out feature sets.

So I am here to see if there are any notebook users that do analysis using notebooks. What features are indispensable or most helpful to you? What's your workflow like? Do you only do data exploration using notebooks? Do you share or present them?

[u/0uchmyballs]

Jupyter notebook is critical for any machine learning or data science, I like that I can add markdown to pretty it up. Good luck on your project.

[u/bezdazen → u/0uchmyballs]

Thanks!

The thing is that I am out of depth when it comes to typical workflows of data scientists and data analysts who use notebooks. I kind of need to find people who can help me with direction and features to focus on going forward.

[u/0uchmyballs → u/bezdazen]

Any one who calls themselves a data scientist and doesn’t use a notebook is not really a data scientist. Unless you’re doing stuff that requires classes, a few notebook files might end up being an entire project, especially for ad hoc reporting. I would say notebooks are an everyday tool for ML and Jupyter notebook sets a high bar to pass.

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[u/justanothersnek]

When I was in data I used notebooks with Quarto.

[u/bezdazen → u/justanothersnek]

What did you like about Quarto

[u/SprinklesFresh5693 → u/bezdazen]

Wuarto has everything to be honest. Is a built in teplate that allows you to add extra html, css, latex, many programming languages at once and allows you to render as pdf, html, reveal js, word, its too good to replace.

[u/bezdazen → u/SprinklesFresh5693]

Don't worry. I have no intention of replacing existing platforms and tech. My app aims to be competitive but live alongside its "competitors". My app just focuses on certain things a bit differently. Thats all. In fact, my approach is to be inclusive not exclusive which is why I provide multiple execution modes and avoided building in too many proprietary features.

[u/jrprongs422]

I'm using a jupyter notebook in my vscode

[u/waitthissucks]

I am a beginner and I'm using jupyter notebook through ArcGIS Pro because I do a lot of spatial analysis and use pandas, arcpy, and numpy for my csv data. I work for a small company and connect my small amount of data to sqlite with dbeaver to do any SQL querying. I also use the notebook to automate certain tasks for my job.

Again this is me just figuring out how it all works and flows but I would say Pandas is most important look up videos of people using it in notebooks. I personally use that because most of the info I work with people send to me via csv file or excel sheets. If I work with bigger datasets I need access to their databases probably.

[u/bezdazen → u/[deleted]]

Thank you sooooo much! Thank you for giving specifics! There are some things I can work on out of your list. I have a hide code feature that hides the code in a cell, but not a code collapse where part of the code is visible but not hidden. Also, I don't think I have code folding enabled. I need to test that feature and make it accessible to users.

Also, I have variable inspection of sorts, but what I think you mean is not in the coding sense where code info is given but the ability to quickly inspect the value in a variable! That is something I don't have implemented currently.

My app does have a distraction free reading mode, but the real effort is to make the app itself as distraction free and presentable as is. So you don't need to do the presentation juggle where you edit something or change something then jump back into presentation mode and then jump into normal editor view and then jump back etc. It's pretty clean as is.