Emacs EIN vs IPython shell

Question

I'm trying to make EIN work within Emacs, but right now (with IPython 2) it seems that it's not possible. This errors arise:

REQUEST [error] Error from parser ein:json-read: (json-readtable-error)
ein: [error] Error (parse-error) while opening notebook list at the server 8888.

But while trying to solve this problem I started to wonder if there is really any advantage of using the notebook over an IPython shell with all the added functionality that Emacs gives.

So the question is: which are the advantages of using EIN over the IPython shell inside Emacs? Is there a way to save an IPython session to a file?

Answer 1

You are correct that ein at tkf's repository on github only works with versions of IPython prior to 2.x.

With that said, however, if you use this version you will find that it works with IPython 2.x and Jupyter (i.e. IPython 3.0).

Installing ein from MELPA or el-get will install the latest ein which works with the latest versions of IPython.

Answer 2

I think EIN's main value was to be able to connect arbitrary buffers to the ipython kernel that corresponds to the notebook, therefore enabling cooperation of multiple Emacs "objects".

But since EIN's README only mentions ipython 0.12 and there hasn't been any activity for a while, it's highly likely that API changes make it currently unusable.

Answer 3

There is a new version of EIN that replaced the old one on MELPA.

On Emacs 25 and up, it works out of the box. Emacs 24 needs to upgrade, though, see https://github.com/millejoh/emacs-ipython-notebook/issues/190.

which are the advantages of using EIN over the IPython shell inside Emacs?

One advantage is to read in ipynb files, and to easily exchange them with non-emacs users, even by running a shared jupyter instance.