Alternative interpreters

Now that you have seen some of the features of the regular Python interpreter, let’s look at some enhanced alternatives. There are many options available, but we will limit ourselves to the most popular ones here:

• bpython
• ptpython
• ipython
• jupyter (web-based ipython)

Let’s get started.

bpython

The bpython interpreter is a curses interface for the Python interpreter that offers many useful features, while still being very similar to the regular Python interpreter.

The curses library allows you to create a fully functioning text-based user interface (TUI). A TUI gives you full control over where you want to write to the screen. The regular Python interpreter is a command-line interface (CLI), which normally only allows you to append to the screen. With a TUI, you can write to any position on the screen, making its features somewhat comparable to a graphical user interface (GUI).

Some...