science

Notebook interface

Notebook interface is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Notebook interface rather than just read about it. In short: A notebook interface or computational notebook is a virtual notebook environment used for literate programming, a method of writing computer programs. Some notebooks are WYSIWYG environments including executable calculations embedded in formatted documents; others separate calculations and text into separate sections.

Key takeaways

Notebook interface belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Notebook interface to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Notebook interface from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

A notebook interface or computational notebook is a virtual notebook environment used for literate programming, a method of writing computer programs. Some notebooks are WYSIWYG environments including executable calculations embedded in formatted documents; others separate calculations and text into separate sections. Notebooks share some goals and features with spreadsheets and word processors but go beyond their limited data models. Modular notebooks may connect to a variety of computational back ends, called "kernels". Notebook interfaces are widely used for statistics, data science, machine learning, and computer algebra. At the notebook core is the idea of literate programming tools which "let you arrange the parts of a program in any order and extract documentation and code from the same source file." The notebook takes this approach to a new level, extending it with some graphic functionality and a focus on interactivity. According to Stephen Wolfram: "the idea of a notebook is to have an interactive document that freely mixes code, results, graphics, text and everything else," and according to the Jupyter Project Documentation: "the notebook extends the console-based approach to interactive computing in a qualitatively new direction, providing a web-based application suitable for capturing the whole computation process: developing, documenting, and executing code, as well as communicating the results."

History VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet for personal computers, was published in 1979. Its idea of visual calculations is still widely used today but limited to documents that fit into a table. Research on WYSIWYG mathematical systems supporting mixed text and calculations with a document metaphor begin to be published in 1987: Ron Avitzur's Milo, William Schelter's INFOR, Xerox PARC's Tioga and CaminoReal. The earliest commercial system using the document metaphor was MathCAD, which also came out in 1987. Wolfram Mathematica 1.0 followed in 1988. Later came Maple 5.2 (1992) and Macsyma 2.0 (1995). As the notebook interface increased in popularity over the next two decades, notebooks for various computational back ends ("kernels") have been introduced, including MATLAB, Python, Julia, R, Scala, Elixir, SQL, and others. The variety of notebook interface has since been extended and new forms are still evolving.

Use Notebooks are traditionally used in the sciences as electronic lab notebooks to document research procedures, data, calculations, and findings. Notebooks track methodology to make it easier to reproduce results and calculations with different data sets. In education, the notebook interface provides a digital learning environment, particularly for the teaching of computational thinking. Their utility for combining text with code makes them unique in the realm of education. Digital notebooks are sometimes used for presentations as an alternative to PowerPoint and other presentation software, as they allow for the execution of code inside the notebook environment. Due to their ability to display data visually and retrieve data from different sources by modifying code, notebooks are also entering the realm of business intelligence software.

Notable examples Example of projects or products of notebooks:

Free/open-source notebooks Apache Spark Notebook – Apache License 2.0 GNU TeXmacs (a document processor which can act as notebook interface as well) – GPLv3 IPython – BSD Jupyter Notebook (formerly IPython) – Modified BSD License (shared copyright model) JupyterLab – Revised BSD License Org-mode on emacs (with the built-in babel addon) – GPL R Markdown – GPLv3 SageMath – GPLv3 Marimo – Apache License

Partial copyleft Anaconda SMath Studio – Freeware, not libre: licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives

Proprietary notebooks CoCalc Google Colab Wolfram Mathematica Kaggle Notebooks Mathcad MATLAB – Live Editor since 2016. Databricks cloud (founded 2013). WolframAlpha Notebooks

See also List of online integrated development environments Read-eval-print loop

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Notebook interface

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Notebook interface claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Notebook interface before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Notebook interface ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Notebook interface

In research: Notebook interface appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Notebook interface in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Notebook interface is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Graphical user interfaces, Literate programming, Notebook interface, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Notebook interface outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Notebook interface in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Notebook interface means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Notebook interface out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Notebook interface in simple terms?

Why does Notebook interface matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Notebook interface?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Notebook interface.