Just a bit more background. We are bioinformaticians who routinely analyze large datasets using tools and libraries in many different languages. Jupyter Notebook supports a large number of kernels but it does not allow us to use multiple kernels in one notebook. As you can imagine, using multiple notebooks for an analysis has caused a lot of trouble in the book-keeping, sharing, and reproduction of our analyses.

SoS Notebook relaxes this restriction and allows us to use a different kernel for each cell of the notebook so that we can use the most appropriate language (tool, library etc) for each step of the analysis. More importantly, SoS Notebook provides a mechanism to transfer variables among live Jupyter kernels so that we can, for example, clean data in Python, analyze them in R or MATLAB, and plot the results in JS.

We have also tried to improve the Jupyter frontend to create a more comprehensive work environment for interactive data analysis. For example, SoS Notebook provides a side panel that allows you to execute cell content line-by-line using shortcut Ctrl-Shift-Enter. It also provides magics to, for example, render output from any kernel in Markdown or HTML, and clear non-informative output after the execution of the cells. We are very excited about our work and would really love to get your feedbacks.