title: Start IPython in a given folder
body: <p>I use IPython 0.13 on OS X 10.6 and would like to do the following: I have different project folders e.g. <code>~/dev/proj1</code>, <code>~/dev/proj2</code>. Now I want to start IPython in one of these folders without changing to it. My first idea was to setup a new shell alias. In order to do so, I updated my <code>bashrc</code> with the following line:</p>
  
  <p><code>proj1="~/dev/proj1/ipython"</code></p>
  
  <p>Unfortunately it did not work. What I got instead was:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>~/dev/proj1/ipython: No such file or directory</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I do not really understand this error, because IPython can be started from any directory by simply typing <code>ipython</code>. And the folders do exist for sure. So, I wondered if there is a way to supply the starting directory as an argument to IPython like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>ipython start-dir="~/dev/proj1/ 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Any ideas to solve this one?</p>