---
title: Polyglot Notebooks
slug: polyglot-notebooks
date: 2023-10-03
tags: devtools, developer-experience, vscode
---

# Polyglot Notebooks

As developers, we sometimes need an isolated environment or a testing sandbox.
For example, to reproduce a problem, or to share a snippet with a team member.

This is already possible using online REPLs e.g. [TypeScript playground](https://www.typescriptlang.org/play) and [.NET fiddle](https://dotnetfiddle.net/), or we can resort to web containers for example [GitHub Codespaces](https://github.com/features/codespaces) or [Stackblitz](https://stackblitz.com/).

The problem that I encounter with these tools is that I often forget or lose previously created proof of concepts, or that it's hard to share them with my team.

That's not the case with Polyglot Notebooks.

Using notebooks has the following benefits:

- testing, creating an isolated sandbox to test something out
- easy to share, can be committed to git
- enhances collaboration, can be used by all team members
- integration, can be integrated within your environment, e.g. connect to a database

Some use cases where notebooks can be useful:

- can serve as an interactive documentation tool
- can include runnable snippets to automate tasks
- teaching/onboarding interactivity makes it more fun
- an offline REPL alternative

Get the Polyglot Notebooks Visual Studio Code extension in the [marketplace](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-dotnettools.dotnet-interactive-vscode).