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Show HN: Observable Notebooks

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Re: Show HN: Observable Notebooks

#41

Post by thousandautumns »

goatlover wrote: post #31
danso wrote: post #7

Just in case people were wondering, the site seems to have been overwhelmed for the past 10-15 minutes. But there's a YouTube demo of the tech https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16275040 I guess an oversimplified description would be that this is like a Jupyter Notebook specifically for JavaScript. Libraries like D3 are pre-loaded and immediately accessible. Am definitely interested in hearing the details about wha…

There's a reason why you would want to run Python and that's the huge, well supported scientific computing libraries it has.

The point wasn't that there is something wrong with Python, the point was that Jupyter requires local installation whereas Observable doesn't require installation of any kind.

Re: Show HN: Observable Notebooks

#42

Post by danso »

goatlover wrote: post #35
mbostock wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few differences. 1. You don’t have to install anything, so running (or forking) someone else’s notebook is as simple as clicking a link. 2. It’s reactive, which means simpler code and better feedback, particularly when building user interfaces or analyzing realtime data. 3. It runs in the browser so you have direct access to powerful graphics (and GPU computation): Canvas, SVG, WebGL. 4. You can quickly import code…

> 3. It runs in the browser so you have direct access to powerful graphics (and GPU computation): Canvas, SVG, WebGL Jupyter is a web server. Notebooks run in the browser. iPython the kernel can run on the command line in addition to the browser. > 1. You don’t have to install anything, so running (or forking) someone else’s notebook is as simple as clicking a link Jupyter lets you clone notebooks with the click of a…

Jupyter Notebooks run in the browser but what examples are there of being able to write Python and have the same kind of access to the DOM and graphics APIs like you have with JavaScript?

Re: Show HN: Observable Notebooks

#43

Post by danso »

thousandautumns wrote: post #41
goatlover wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason why you would want to run Python and that's the huge, well supported scientific computing libraries it has.

The point wasn't that there is something wrong with Python, the point was that Jupyter requires local installation whereas Observable doesn't require installation of any kind.

Yep, Python is my language for work and teaching, especially for data projects. Doesn't mean I don't envy the interactivity and visualization potential working in JS.

Re: Show HN: Observable Notebooks

#44

Post by peatmoss »

goatlover wrote: post #31
danso wrote: post #7

Just in case people were wondering, the site seems to have been overwhelmed for the past 10-15 minutes. But there's a YouTube demo of the tech https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16275040 I guess an oversimplified description would be that this is like a Jupyter Notebook specifically for JavaScript. Libraries like D3 are pre-loaded and immediately accessible. Am definitely interested in hearing the details about wha…

There's a reason why you would want to run Python and that's the huge, well supported scientific computing libraries it has.

I was just thinking about a proliferation of Javascript statistical libraries popping up... only an NPM away. And I shuddered a little.

And then it occurred to me that CRAN and NPM have a fair bit in common. Both have a package for anything you might imagine, and both have a mix of amazing and less-than-amazing quality.

Re: Show HN: Observable Notebooks

#45

Post by stochastic_monk »

tmcw wrote: post #40
goatlover wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason why you would want to run Python and that's the huge, well supported scientific computing libraries it has.

Absolutely! We all quite like Python, and there's no denying that JavaScript doesn't have the same caliber and range of scientific code (yet!). I fully expect plenty of people to do some of the data-crunching in Python, Julia, R, and so on, and bring it into Observable to explore and experiment. And I also expect JavaScript's ecosystem to blossom, especially with WebAssembly & WebGL hitting the mainstream.

What’s the status of d3 ports to Python? I believe plotly, d3py, and Bokeh all offer some amount of support.

I’d expect more python users to bring d3 in that bring python to JavaScript.

Re: Show HN: Observable Notebooks

#46

Post by leblancfg »

cpsempek wrote: post #22

This couldn't have come at a more convenient time for me. After years of telling myself I'd learn D3 I have finally started to as well as use it at work. I was using an extension in Jupyter but it was behaving unpredictably, and not being a frontend engineer by trade I found the process of sublime + browser foreign and cumbersome. As a big fan of jupyter and zeppelin I am stoked to see notebooks entering the js data…

I know many developers who've integrated Jupyter Notebooks in their workflow too. For Python-specific things, it's a great way to replicate bugs, try out a few initial solution paths, and share them with collaborators who can then interact with.

Regarding D3, I haven't tried that out yet, although I've used the `folium` Python package, which generates leaflet.js code you can put on a website. Otherwise, maybe check out [Jupyter Dashboards](https://github.com/jupyter/dashboards), whose interactive widgets seem to be in the same vein as OP.

Re: Show HN: Observable Notebooks

#47

Post by softawre »

cpsempek wrote: post #22

This couldn't have come at a more convenient time for me. After years of telling myself I'd learn D3 I have finally started to as well as use it at work. I was using an extension in Jupyter but it was behaving unpredictably, and not being a frontend engineer by trade I found the process of sublime + browser foreign and cumbersome. As a big fan of jupyter and zeppelin I am stoked to see notebooks entering the js data…

To me, a netbook like this is similar to a REPL and works well for visualization tasks. You can figure it out in the netbook/REPL and then move it to "real code" once you've got it figured out.

Re: Show HN: Observable Notebooks

#48

Post by maksimum »

wizzard0 wrote: post #21
polalavik wrote: post #19

How is this different than Ipython/Jupyter notebooks? Whys everyone freaking out about this.

basically if you have a bunch of code blocks that depend on each others' results - you don't have to remember which ones to update if you changed one, it will update automatically. especially useful with data visualization/exploration, but also helps a lot if you have a complex sequence where it's easy to get lost and forget to recompute something. there's a youtube link in the comments here which explains a lot.

> you don't have to remember which ones to update if you changed one, it will update automatically.

Although I see how that would enable rapid iteration and make e.g. creating nice visualizations much easier, I don't think it should be mandatory. The user may want to control the state their notebook and variables are in manually.

Re: Show HN: Observable Notebooks

#50

Post by ryanianian »

jashkenas wrote: post #20
ryanianian wrote: post #17

This is really cool and would be a great way to introduce programming concepts in an educational setting. Instant-feedback, inline documentation in a narrative style, and running on a browser really lowers the barrier for entry. I would have loved something like this when I was learning programming in middle-school decades ago. Since it comes from the guys behind D3 it's not surprising that much of the visuals come f…

I would have loved something like this while learning to program as well. I mean ... the Ruby REPL was fun, but this sort of thing is just so much more tactile and visual. We haven't had time to produce as many demo notebooks as we might have liked, but these notebooks really aren't D3-specific in the slightest. They're a reactive flavor of JavaScript, and anything that produces a value or can be rendered to the DOM…

Oh that's cool I thought there were special hooks with D3. The native inputs demo seems really compelling especially in a learning environment. I'll definitely play with this and bring it into my next mentoring group meeting. (They'll be so glad to get away from scratch!)

One cool thing that Swift playgrounds let you do is advance program state through loops and other flow-control line-by-line using a slider. I think they have to have cooperation with the compiler/runtime to make this happen. (I'm also not sure how truly useful it is after a few days of learning the basics.)

I suppose you could do something similar with the native inputs but not using native syntax. What I'm thinking would be a massive undertaking I realize - it's cool that this offering generates so many "ooh and what else" ideas.

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