[zamber]

SO has runnable snippets, there are services like CodePen too and some articles are using it, but there's one simple trick making your point moot.

F12 or Ctrl+Shift+i and Ctrl+c Ctrl+v and you're executing code in the context of the post ;).

It's not a notebook but does the job well enough.

[angleofrepose]

Haha, sure, sure. But that's not really the point. We have machine code right? Who needs an assembler? Tools and workflows are worth thinking about and improving. Right?

[zamber]

Depends a lot. Debugging is awesome when you have source maps and good devtools in a modern browser but the code itself is not editable. That said it's possible to open a plain html file from disk with devtools and save changes done in it to disk making devtools essentially a development environment.

I wonder how much value there is to this particular use case because it lives somewhere between devtools and an online IDE. Also arguably testing out a library in a codepen is more comfortable than an inline which you potentially can't save.

[angleofrepose]

Very good points. Makes me think about a persistent web, what if every javascript code visible on your page could be edited and persisted between loads or visits or you could send a blog post link to a friend with your edits/comments/changed environment. Not arguing for that immediately, it's just interesting to think about.

Then what do you do when someone is demonstrating how to reset a page, whether that be document.body.innerHTML = "" or document.body.removeChild(main). They could be run in sandboxes, like starboard here in iframes. Or a powerful history tool can be attached to the page. Every program takes an environment as a parameter, maybe we can make it as easy to shuffle around them as playing with cards.

To really simplify it down, I'm exploring the space of digital workspace + shell. What do you get with a compute environment in OneNote or Figma or Sketchup. What do you get if you can position things in a freeform space rather than a filesystem and text based browser? Can I build a Sketchpad with code editing, and take advantage of viewport macros to build a space of my project and explorations?

Makespace.fun + jsfiddle/observable seems like an environment that I'd like to work in with myself, my collaborators and arbitrary content. To play with things like history and alternatives, and associations of material and ideas.

I have a good example of success of programmatic control of content and auto layouts working with my tiling window manager. Being able to explicitly describe compositions and demonstrating computational content seem to be targets not yet hit by the pop culture of personal computing.

I might be just blowing hot air with all this, but it is fun to play around with.