Good idea. It would make a nice series of blog posts... though I must say the easy-to-print PDF format has some nice things going for it too ;)

I think IPython notebook would be the best format for this.

Complete agreement -- IPython is a nice, relatively lightweight mathematical environment based on Python. Runs locally in a browser [EDIT: and command line as well]. Easy to use. Free.

My IPython tutorial: http://www.arachnoid.com/IPython

> Runs locally in a browser

And in terminal or a native Qt-based app. The Python runs always natively (ie not in browser), notebook/browser is merely a frontend to it.

Yes, thank you -- I edited my earlier post to reflect this.

Why? If you have a browser plugin that can display PDFs they seem as convenient as a webpage to me. Better in some ways: usually layed out better, often faster to navigate and sometimes even smaller to download considering how bloated websites tend to be now, no ads, much better looking if printed.