While terrifying, it is not uncommon to see python notebooks make it to production.

Oh god why. I thought (and hoped) that GP didn't actually mean this.

I see how a team or an organization can eventually get to this point. It just saddens me that they got there.

why not, many data related tasks are rather ad-hoc, it's a waste of time to make a long lasting software out of every ad-hoc request

Seen the same with exposed matlab web apps. Not just the Python guys, kind of shocking how much group think exists on any platform.

Quite a number of AI edtech sites use notebooks in production for assignments, as an example of when it happens.

Usually what happens is:

1. "We got it all working in the notebook"

2. "Great, ship it"

3. (data scientist takes the notebook code almost verbatim, wraps it in a basic CLI or HTTP API and it gets shipped off in a docker container for other services to consume)

In practice that’s not too crazy. It’s fast easy to debug and works with most CI/CD tools.

If you ever want to work in teams that kind of setup works extremely well.