Wait, IPython can do that?!

Sebastian Witowski

Best Practice Development Ipython Tooling iPython

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I've been programming in Python for over 7 years. And from the time someone introduced me to IPython, it immediately became my default Python REPL. I enjoyed the syntax highlighting, code completion or the instant access to the documentation. Over the years, I've picked up more and more tricks that IPython could do: embedding IPython sessions, starting IPython automatically when a test fails, taking advantage of the startup files, not to mention all the various magic functions.

It took me some time to discover all those features (if there is one thing I would like you to take away from this talk, it’s that reading the documentation of a tool that you are using _every day_ is probably a good idea) and in this talk, I will give an overview of what you can do with IPython REPL.

Some of the things I will talk about:
- Documentation with ? and ??, running shell functions in IPython, magic functions
- Profiles, startup files, configuration file, kernels, and extensions
- How to better use IPython for debugging
- How to use IPython for profiling
- Alternatives to IPython REPL

This talk is for you if you are a casual user of IPython - you know some of its features, but maybe not all of them and instead of reading through the documentation, you would prefer to see someone giving an overview of IPython features and how you can use them.

This talk is NOT for you if you are up to date with IPython documentation and you think you know most of its features.

Type: Talk (45 mins); Python level: Intermediate; Domain level: Beginner


Sebastian Witowski

I'm a software engineer with 7 years of experience in full stack development, operations and leading small projects. I worked as a DevOps at CERN for the past 6 years. Recently, I have started my own journey with Python consulting and training.

In my spare time, I like to talk about Python, coding and productivity.