I've taught a number of newbies Python (including a team of data scientists) using IPython notebooks and it's convinced me that is the right way to do it. I can

I've taught a number of newbies Python (including a team of data scientists) using IPython notebooks and it's convinced me that is the right way to do it. I can setup a few notebooks with datasets, database connectivity, etc. and all they have to do is point a browser at the URL and start hacking. There's nothing to download, no environment variables to set, and no packages to install / setup.