Isn't this -- at least in spirit -- what IPython notebook tries to do? In IPython, you can use shell commands with a bang, e.g. `!ls -l`. And `ipython notebook` uses ZMQ to connect the server and client.
At any rate, awesome work. I've been thinking for a while, offhandedly, about the idea of piping web URLs around. But I don't know how in fact it would work under the hood. I write a lot of API interfaces in my work, and it's all in the details -- every API is different in small but important ways.
We have been developing pigshell off and on since ~2012, and I was unaware of IPython notebooks until ~6 months ago. When I'd last used IPython, it didn't have any of the notebook stuff. So it was a bit of a jar to see that they had been there, done that, got the T-shirt, published the book, etc. etc. :)
Pigshell can run in the browser with zero installation, and has a low barrier for casual usage. "Notebooks" aka gists can be shared without requiring a backend. The focus of pigshell is more around providing file adapters for web/cloud data stores.
That said - more power to IPython! I love the conversational, exploratory, CLI style of interacting with a computing environment. The more ecosystems of this sort, the better.
At any rate, awesome work. I've been thinking for a while, offhandedly, about the idea of piping web URLs around. But I don't know how in fact it would work under the hood. I write a lot of API interfaces in my work, and it's all in the details -- every API is different in small but important ways.