IPython is the interactive computing shell for Python that will change the way you think about interactive shells. It brings to the table a host of very useful functionalities that will most likely become part of your default toolbox, including magic functions, tab completion, easy access to command-line tools, and much more. We will only scratch the surface here and strongly recommend that you keep exploring what can be done with IPython.
If you have completed the installation instructions in the first chapter, you should be ready to tackle the following recipes. Note that IPython 2.0, which is a major release, was launched in 2014.
The following steps will get you up and running with the IPython environment:
Open up a terminal window on your computer and type
ipython
. You should be immediately presented with the following text:Python 2.7.5 (default, Mar 9 2014, 22:15:05) Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information...