Python for Data Analysis

Chapter 3. IPython: An Interactive Computing and Development Environment

Act without doing; work without effort. Think of the small as large and the few as many. Confront the difficult while it is still easy; accomplish the great task by a series of small acts.

—Laozi

People often ask me, “What is your Python development environment?” My answer is almost always the same, “IPython and a text editor”. You may choose to substitute an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for a text editor in order to take advantage of more advanced graphical tools and code completion capabilities. Even if so, I strongly recommend making IPython an important part of your workflow. Some IDEs even provide IPython integration, so it’s possible to get the best of both worlds.

The IPython project began in 2001 as Fernando Pérez’s side project to make a better interactive Python interpreter. In the subsequent 11 years it has grown into what’s widely considered one of the most important tools in the modern scientific Python computing stack. While it does not provide any computational or data analytical tools by itself, IPython is designed from the ground up to maximize your productivity in both interactive computing and software development. It encourages an execute-explore workflow instead of the typical edit-compile-run workflow of many other programming languages. It also provides very tight integration with the operating system’s shell and file system. Since much of data analysis coding involves exploration, ...