Encouraging Notebooks i.e. JupyterLab

[please-wait]

The use of Jupyter notebooks is very common in data science. Let's see how they would work for BlockchainYVR presentations.

It has been a few months since they have introduced JupyterLab. JupyterLab's environment is pretty extendable, I have tried Python and Node.js in it, both work well.

Demo

Advantages

• Intuitive interface for note taking
• A block can be executed many times. Great for experimenting and changing parameters.
• Great for presentation and review. Has a presentation mode.
• Steps can be explained better with Markdown than typical code commenting.
• Features like code highlighting are natively supported.
• Notebook files can be shared on Github. There are extensions.

Disadvantages

• JupyterLab should be installed and configured.
• Notebooks have hidden states that may confuse beginners if they don't run the blocks in order.
• Without a requirements.txt for each notebook getting dependencies is extra work.
• For the most compatibility with Git, some extra work is necessary. There are additional tools like nbdime for reviewing diffs.
• Features like linting and autocomplete are non-existent or limited because of the nature of the block system.

[bmann]

Hey @please-wait in the blockchain world for Ethereum in any case, Remix is a Solidity IDE on the web https://remix.ethereum.org/

I think it's pretty much up to the presenters what they want to use -- and since we are looking forward to demos and such, not sure what that will look like.

Do you have something you want to present with a notebook? That would be great!

[please-wait]

Remix and any IDE is limited in running specific parts of the code, using multiple languages, and adding visuals to a tutorial. But you are right, I should present something to test it out. How about a presentation on Diffie Hellman Key Exchange?