Web notebooks are the new system shell, it's just that most developers haven't realized it yet. The original shell was an evolution over the teletype. Develope

Web notebooks are the new system shell, it's just that most developers haven't realized it yet. The original shell was an evolution over the teletype. Developers would type their code on a typewriter machine connected to the CPU over a wire (maybe involving punched tape or cards); and the CPU spouted back the results of the commands executed. Later, when video screens were adopted, they emulated the same linear approach of the terminal on the new device, because developers tend to be an extremely conservative bunch when it comes to the approach taken by their tools of the trade. It took several decades to exploit the advantages of interactive sessions that the new media allowed, creating a new family of IDEs with live debugging, property inspectors and Intellisense/contextual help. We are at a similar turning point with respect to classic development tools. The notebook is still used mostly as an improved version of the bash shell "with graphics", but there's a lot of research to do on how to enhance the model with new tools to take advantage of the new medium (including literate programming, web-based collaboration, or instant feedback of command execution on persistent objects). People are exploring the possibilities of this approach, with Bret Victor possibly being the most influential. I'm sure the personal experiences of thousands of developers with their home-made workflows, involving lots of heterogeneous tools used in creative ways, could be studied to design a more general environment that will change how large software projects are built.