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Re:Practical Data Science in Python by gaius on Friday February 06, 2015 @03:39AM (#9008145)
Back in the 90s we used a program called MathCAD which did all this interactive notebook stuff, in MS Word.
Re:Practical Data Science in Python by gh02t on Friday February 06, 2015 @09:34AM (#9009122)
MathCAD is still around, it is at least pretty popular in my field (nuclear engineering). I actually hate it to be honest, but I think it is good for people who are less inclined towards programming.

That said, I think Mathematica does a much better job of notebook style programming. You can do some truly amazing things manipulating the Mathematica notebook. The language itself is also pretty nice, something like APL flavored lisp with M-expressions instead of S-expressions. It isn't without its flaws, but it is one of my favorite tools in the toolbox (along with Python, C++, Haskell and Fortran).

Re:Practical Data Science in Python by gaius on Friday February 06, 2015 @10:15AM (#9009305)
This may be prior to Mathematica getting the notebook - we were also using MATLAB and FORTRAN on Vaxes :-)