Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like IPython is better for sharing your final analysis but I do all of my coding/development in Emacs + python-mode and haven't been able to figure out all the hype around IPython. And once you start with Pylab it becomes difficult to map your functions back to their original namespaces (especially since many are redundant between numpy and scipy) in a bigger project, so I stopped using it altogether. Could yo…
What entrypoint are you using to run your programs? REPL function calls / test runners / main methods from the CLI / local web server w/browser? I think understanding that matters the most. If you do a lot of development in the REPL (i.e. exploration), then that is where iPython (in a notebook, or a shell) really is nice. If you don't, then you may not see the benefit.
I primarily program with python for shell scripting/text processing, or data analysis/simulation with numpy/scipy/pandas.
I do a lot of exploration, I rarely ever type anything directly in the REPL/interpreter - I write all my code in scripts and send them to the REPL with emacs keystrokes. Afterwards, I'm left with a script that contains my analysis/processing method. (never had a local web server running except when playing with emacs ipython notebook).
Am I possibly missing a way to do it better?