For R&D the feedback loops are much tighter for sketching an algorithm line by line in Jupyter vs a Python file. Error in the 20th function? Ok fine then I’ll just change the cell it’s defined in and continue from the state of after the 19th. If I forget the layout or type of an object, just inspect it right there in a new cell.
Especially if it deals with multimedia, can just blit images or audio or HTML applications inline.
And it’s fairly trivial to go from Jupyter Notebook -> Python file once you’re done.
I think the author was comparing R and Python, not Python and Jupyter.
Re:IPython 8.0
by disgruntledphd2 on Thursday January 13, 2022 @03:49AM
(#29918306)
Specifically I think they were comparing rmarkdown vs jupyter. And it's really no contest, all the things people hate about jupyter are solved by rmarkdown (and org mode, but that's a harder sell)
The problem with RStudio is that it uses R, which while excellent at numerical calculations, is terrible at everything else - data parsing, string munging, file processing, ...
As the joke goes: The best thing about R is that it's designed by statisticians. The worst thing about R is that it's designed by statisticians.
evidence that R is terrible at everything else?
specifically "data parsing", "string munging", and "file processing"?
I've used R extensively for all of these, and having recently re-visited the python world don't see any advantage that Python has over R for any of these tasks.
Re:IPython 8.0
by alexilliamson on Wednesday January 12, 2022 @04:51PM
(#29913209)
RStudio has pretty amazing python support now FYI
My wife has been learning Python (not a programmer) and now is looking at R. I thought she was going to like it as I personally think RStudio is nice. I was surprised she didn't like Rmarkdown after being exposed to Python notebooks, in particular she loved vscode + notebooks and immediate feedback and didn't like at all not having the markdown in RStudio interactively rendered and the R REPL. I have used very little R and I'm a heavy Python user so maybe I didn't know how to help her more effectively. I think I helped solving the main Python pain points: installing anaconda, vscode, the python extension and some additional auto completion. I don't use vscode (use Emacs) but it's great it's available for newbie users :p. Also, having Colab was nice for simple things.
To summarize: I think notebooks are great for newcomers. It requires more maturity to appreciate more principled programming.
I wonder what she would make of writing Python in Rstudio & to an Rmd? Rstudio is trying to get people on board with this e.g. https://support.rstudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360023654474-I...
(Caveat that Jupyter is way better with e.g. Julia, in my (limited) experience)