The talk will explore the limitations of current interactive notebook paradigms and introduce Twinsong, an experimental alternative to Jupyter that reimagines interactive programming for scientific computing. The talk will explore the design philosophy, technical implementation, and potential impact on scientific computing workflows.

Unlike linear notebooks, TwinSong decouples code execution from outputs. This approach preserves execution history, allows multiple kernel instances, and provides a cleaner, more manageable computational environment. Users can also organize code hierarchically, enabling: batch subtree evaluation, hierarchically scoped memory spaces that prevent variable leakage, and more intuitive code structuring for complex scientific workflows. TwinSong offers visibility into computational states, including detailed variable inspection and chronological output tracking.

TwinSong also provides Git-friendly notebook formats that minimize collaboration friction. Rust-based backend ensures performance and reliability and clean Python kernel implementation without loading Python modules and starting new Python threads.

TwinSong is an open source and available at: github.com/spirali/twinsong.