This is the first I've looked into IPython Notebook, so apologies for the newbie question: Is a notebook an html page with Python code snippets interspersed? Are these supposed to be interactive at all? Or do you have to copy the Python locally, then install some packages before you can finally run it?
I guess I'm asking, what's the difference between an HTML page that shows a Python implementation of an algorithm vs those links? Or what's the appeal?
I'm certain IPython Notebooks are valuable, since everybody seems to love them. It's not clear from glancing at those examples what the big deal is, though, so I thought I should ask in case more newbies come along and incorrectly conclude that there's nothing especially interesting about those examples beyond their content. (To be clear, the content is excellent, but why is IPython Notebook to thank rather than the author? Could those examples not have been done via some other method, or is the purpose of IPython Notebook just to make it really easy to generate such pages?)
I guess I'm asking, what's the difference between an HTML page that shows a Python implementation of an algorithm vs those links? Or what's the appeal?
I'm certain IPython Notebooks are valuable, since everybody seems to love them. It's not clear from glancing at those examples what the big deal is, though, so I thought I should ask in case more newbies come along and incorrectly conclude that there's nothing especially interesting about those examples beyond their content. (To be clear, the content is excellent, but why is IPython Notebook to thank rather than the author? Could those examples not have been done via some other method, or is the purpose of IPython Notebook just to make it really easy to generate such pages?)