Extending notebooks with kernels

In our example in the previous section, we saw how code cells could be executed to produce a result.

This work is carried out by a kernel designed for the programming language you’re working with. In the earlier example, we saw a code cell written in Python. Since this is Python code, it uses the Python kernel.

In this way, the Jupyter Notebooks environment can support multiple languages, including Julia, Python, and R, as shown in Figure 1.8:

Figure 1.8 – Different kernels available to the notebook

When you execute a Python cell, the code is sent to the Python kernel, which interprets it, executes it, and produces a result as illustrated in Figure 1.9:

Figure 1.9 – Jupyter Notebooks executing the Python kernel

This extensible design allows Jupyter Notebooks to support additional languages by adding additional kernels for those languages.

This is exactly what Polyglot...