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Zasper: A Modern and Efficient Alternative to JupyterLab, Built in Go

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Re: Zasper: A Modern and Efficient Alternative to JupyterLab, Built in Go

#31
post #5

Honest question: what is not modern about JupyterLab? I know JupyterLab has existed for a long time, but continuous development has kept it modern.

The need to start the server is really annoying. Especially when you have notebooks in multiple places, or multiple virtual envs.

This is why I moved to working with Jupyter notebooks in VS Code, there is no server to manually start.

Re: Zasper: A Modern and Efficient Alternative to JupyterLab, Built in Go

#32
> ... A Modern and Efficient Alternative to JupyterLab ...

This is not meant as criticism, just perspective. It's a classic development sequence:

  * A team creates a powerful, small-footprint, REPL environment.
  * Over time people ask for more features and languages.
  * The developers agree to all such requests.
  * The environment inevitably becomes more difficult to install and maintain.
  * A new development team offers a smaller, more efficient REPL environment.
  * Over time ... wash, rinse, repeat.
This BTW is what happened to Sage, which grew over time and was eventually replaced by IPython, then Jupyter, then JupyterLab. Sage is now an installable JupyterLab kernel, as is Go, among many other languages, in an environment that's increasingly difficult to install and maintain.

Hey -- just saying. Zasper might be clearly better and replace everything, in a process that mimics biological evolution. Can't leave without an XKCD reference: https://xkcd.com/927/

Again, not meant as criticism -- not at all.

Re: Zasper: A Modern and Efficient Alternative to JupyterLab, Built in Go

#34
post #32

> ... A Modern and Efficient Alternative to JupyterLab ... This is not meant as criticism, just perspective. It's a classic development sequence: * A team creates a powerful, small-footprint, REPL environment. * Over time people ask for more features and languages. * The developers agree to all such requests. * The environment inevitably becomes more difficult to install and maintain. * A new development team offers…

> JupyterLab kernel

There is no such thing. There are Jupyter kernels. JupyterLab is just one of many UIs that speak the Jupyter protocol. Other examples include the original Jupyter notebook editor, VSCode Jupyter extension, and now Zasper.

I'm pretty sure Sage was always intended as a project that integrates the world, never "small footprint".

Re: Zasper: A Modern and Efficient Alternative to JupyterLab, Built in Go

#36
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's stellar sportmanship right there. Not that jupyter's team needed even more respect from the community but damn.

I think that's fairly normal, having alternative frontends can only be beneficial to the community. I know it also look like there is a single Jupyter team, but the project is quite large, there are a lot of constraints and disagreements internally and there is not way to accomodate all users in the default jupyter install. Alternative are always welcome ; at least if they don't fragment the ecosystem by being not ba…

The last paragraph let me think your normal is particularly collaborative lol.

Re: Zasper: A Modern and Efficient Alternative to JupyterLab, Built in Go

#37
It's probably an unrelated post (apologies in advance) but I wanted to shoutout to the Marimo (https://marimo.io), it's the only Jupyter alternative that really got me excited, it's like Streamlit and Jupyter had a kid (and the kid took the best genes from both).

Re: Zasper: A Modern and Efficient Alternative to JupyterLab, Built in Go

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations on the launch! It's great to see alternatives to Jupyter. JupyterLab is an excellent, however creating editor for broad audience is challenging. I've found Jupyter difficult to use, especially for beginners. Managing kernels, Python environments, and installing new packages can be quite cumbersome. Are you planning to address these challenges in Zasper?

Have you tried the Jupyter desktop app? It's more self-contained.

Yes, I tried Jupyter Desktop. It is fantastic, I like that you can double click on notebook file to open app. However, it might be a little to complicated for beginners, you need to setup Python and select kernels. That's too much.

Re: Zasper: A Modern and Efficient Alternative to JupyterLab, Built in Go

#40
post #32

> ... A Modern and Efficient Alternative to JupyterLab ... This is not meant as criticism, just perspective. It's a classic development sequence: * A team creates a powerful, small-footprint, REPL environment. * Over time people ask for more features and languages. * The developers agree to all such requests. * The environment inevitably becomes more difficult to install and maintain. * A new development team offers…

> JupyterLab kernel There is no such thing. There are Jupyter kernels. JupyterLab is just one of many UIs that speak the Jupyter protocol. Other examples include the original Jupyter notebook editor, VSCode Jupyter extension, and now Zasper. I'm pretty sure Sage was always intended as a project that integrates the world, never "small footprint".

>> JupyterLab kernel

> There is no such thing.

A Web search reveals that the alternate term "Jupyter kernel," appears equally often. The terms are interchangeable.

> I'm pretty sure Sage was always intended as a project that integrates the world, never "small footprint".

A large install became true eventually, but it began as a small Python-based install, about 120 KB. Then people asked for extensions, and William Stein said "Yes".

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