So much of my exploratory work with IPython is to explore the Django models I use in my apps, and I am having trouble seeing what a notebook adds for me.
https://github.com/ipython/ipython/wiki/A-gallery-of-interes...
Mostly data exploration / scientific computing.
If the project is notable enough a search like this usually works: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_sort=video_view_count&...
A random result from my previous link is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6dLGQw9yFQ
Click the gear icon where you can select the quality. Playback speed should also be there. Sometimes it isn't.
In which case, force it into the popout view by tweaking the URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=H6dLGQw9yFQ
Huzzah. :)
document.getElementsByTagName('video')[0].playbackRate = 2Usually I am looking less at analyzing reams of data, though, and more at the relations between objects. ("What kind of object is User.things? It's a query set, but do we ever have more than one? Do we have any users with no Thing associated?") While notebooks can surely express that, I rarely feel like I need to re-create the asking of the question. Perhaps it is that I have not yet graduated far enough in my explorations of data that a Notebook is the best tool.
I'm going to look more closely at them this week, though. Thank you for the encouragement to do so.
I keep these things in a dated "Notebook" file, like "Notebook/2013-07", just to hold all my one-offs.
Why do I keep them? Well, often it takes a while for me to set up the particular environment I need. If there's a problem with the calculation for X, I need to load the right data, set up the context for X, run through the individual bits until I see what the issue is.
I save the ipython notebook where I go through all that, and then if I need to go back to the calculation, for example to demonstrate to someone else my example that something has gone wrong, then I can just load up the notebook. If something is supposed to have been fixed, I can load up the notebook and repeat the calculation and see if it works now.
Unlike emacs org-mode, I can easily save the graphs as part of this. ("Look, if I plot the distribution, there's this big extra lump over there. Where's that coming from?")
If I go back to a file, it typically takes me a bit of thought to remember exactly what I was doing there. Once I figure it out again, I add sentence or two of markdown.
It's a useful thing to have around.
I might be misunderstanding what you're wanting here, but are you looking for something like (R example):
#+begin_src R :exports both :results graphics :file graph.png
...
#+end_src