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>>Anything graphical or interactive

but ipython is already well integrated with matplotlib in the --pylab mode, and is pretty interactive. Thats how I use it.

re:saving state - its technically a nightmare, I agree. I though it might be possible at OS level - just dumping the whole process. There still would be issues of what to do with open files, network connections, etc, but somehow it seems that in many use cases that would be enough.

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Yeah, I used matplotlib like that for years (at times all day every day), but the notebook interface makes it much easier to keep track of lots of figures and where they actually came from, so I switched to that 4-5 years ago. The figures are also much more lasting, as they save in the notebook right next to the code, so it's a lot easier to go back and make sense of old work, especially with markdown cells documenting things right there too.

I think even saving state by dumping the whole process is unfeasible. What happens if some dependency gets upgraded, e.g. for a critical security hole? The problems seem unavoidable, so I think we're stuck.

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