JetBrains DataSpell is JetBrains new IntelliJ-based (the same engine as in JetBrains PyCharm) IDE for Jupyter Notebooks.
The principal difference between PyCharm and DataSpell is the focus – PyCharm is an IDE for general Python development and DataSpell is an IDE for Data Science in Python.
DataSpell’s key advantages compared to Jupyter Notebooks / Jupyter Lab are:
- Smart Code Assistance – when editing cells, the IDE offers hints for code completion and on-the-fly error checking
- Extreme Interactivity – the IDE provides much more control over the notebooks than a web interface
- Extreme Debugging – while Jupyter Lab / Notebooks do offer debugging of the notebooks via some extensions, the extensions are difficult to set up and are very slow. DataSpell offers debugging comfort impossible in web interfaces.
These features make understanding any machine learning model or algorithmic trading strategy incredibly easy.
I highly recommend using JetBrains DataSpell for experimenting with the code in my “Hands-On Financial Trading with Python”:
Check JetBrains’ Blog Article introducing DataSpell, Diff for workbooks, and the introductory video:
Note: JupyterLab released in the late September 2021 their own Desktop App based upon the Electron.