Open 'ipython notebook' as: IPython notebook vs Jupyter

25
votes

I expected to find more documentation on the following:

From one computer: C:\Python>ipython notebook opens the browser as 'IPython Notebook'.

From second computer: C:\Python>ipython notebook opens the browser as 'Jupyter'.

I dont have a preference, but when saving from the 'Jupyter' browser, I can no longer open a .ipnb file in the 'IPython Notebook' browser. I encounter a "bad request" error.

Initially I assumed that 'ipython notebook' had been updated to use 'Jupyter' as its browser so I updated (pip install "ipython[notebook]") on both computers with no effect. Clearly I am missing something.

Did ipython notebook switch to using Jupyter? If so, am I incorrectly updating IPython?

2
ipythonipython-notebookjupyter

2 Answers

25
votes

ipython Notebook is now called Jupyter so perhaps a different version of Anaconda is installed on the other computer?

So Jupyter is what ipython Notebook will continue to develop as - they dropped python as it is basically "agnostic" now: it can load different languages - python 2 or 3, but also R , Julia and more.

helpful video on Jupyter intro

you can try:

pip install --upgrade "ipython[all]"

24
votes

ipython is still an active project all its own --- an interactive python program. jupyter is a language-agnostic app that branched out of ipython (specifically, ipython notebook).

The jupyter notebook is a generalization of the ipython version ---- it is now a web-app that can be used as a notebook for a huge variety of different languages (not just python). The jupyter notebook still uses ipython as the 'kernel' for running python code.

As for the practical aspects of your question: for the future, you should use jupyter to launch notebooks instead of ipython. It is now present in all of the standard package managers.

From the ipython homepage:

Jupyter and the future of IPython

IPython is a growing project, with increasingly language-agnostic components. IPython 3.x was the last monolithic release of IPython, containing the notebook server, qtconsole, etc. As of IPython 4.0, the language-agnostic parts of the project: the notebook format, message protocol, qtconsole, notebook web application, etc. have moved to new projects under the name Jupyter. IPython itself is focused on interactive Python, part of which is providing a Python kernel for Jupyter.