Pyodide, a Mozilla’s independent community-driven project, provides a full Python data science stack running entirely in the browser. It uses the CPython 3.8 interpreter compiled to WebAssembly and uses Python, NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, SciPy, and more in Iodide, an experimental interactive scientific computing environment for the web.
Pyodide can be used in any context where it is necessary to run Python inside a web browser with full access to the Web APIs. The latest release note mentions that Pyodide converted the Python 3.8 runtime to WebAssembly and the Python scientific stack, including Pandas for data analysis, NumPy for scientific computing, and SciPy for scientific and technical computing, Matplotlib for visualization, and scikit-learn for machine learning.
At the time of the release, 75 packages are currently available. Pure Python wheels can also be installed from the PyPi Python package manager. Python 0.17 additionally provides transparent conversion of objects between Python and JavaScript.
Iodide was developed in 2018 to create in-browser notebooks for scientific exploration and visualization like Jupyter. However, Iodide is no longer actively maintained. Though, Pyodide can be used in other interactive client-side notebook environments.
The idea behind Pyodide was to make the web better for scientists. Thus, the team focused on ways to work with Javascript better, like compiling existing scientific libraries to WebAssembly and wrapping them in easy-to-use JS API. They mention that Mozilla’s WebAssembly wizards offer a more advanced idea; if many scientists prefer Python, then the team decided to assist them by compiling the Python science stack to run in WebAssembly.
The complete release note and announcements are available online and contain a lot of additional illustrations and explanations. Pyodide has now become an independent and community-driven open-source project distributed under the Mozilla Public License Version 2.0.
Github: https://github.com/pyodide/pyodide
Mozilla Blog: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/03/iodide-an-experimental-tool-for-scientific-communicatiodide-for-scientific-communication-exploration-on-the-web/
Consultant Intern: Kriti Maloo is currently pursuing her B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhubaneswar. She is interested in Data Analytics and its applications in various domains. She is a Bibliophile and loves to explore new advancements in the field of technology.
