simple IPython example raises exception on sys.exit()

What you need to do is to cause the QApplication to be deleted later as in:

app = QApplication(sys.argv)
app.aboutToQuit.connect(app.deleteLater)

Using this code you can rerun the application as many times as you want in IPython, or anywhere else and every time you close your qt application, the object will be deleted in python.

This answer is thanks to Matthias BUSSONNIER from the ipython-users mailing list.

When I close the window of the running demo application, I see this error: An exception has occurred, use %tb to see the full traceback. SystemExit: 0

Just don't use sys.exit(0) as you are not exiting python, but still running IPython.

Add it back if you wish to run your app from a (real) command line and have a return status.

If I try to execute my code again, I get this:
RuntimeError: A QApplication instance already exists.

This is a PySide Bug that they "won't fix" as they don't consider it a bug.

See https://github.com/ipython/ipython/issues/1124)
and http://bugs.pyside.org/show_bug.cgi?id=855

QApplication can only have one instance and quitting an app is apparently not considered a reason sufficient enough do delete the object...

You can use this code from above issues :

app=QtGui.QApplication.instance() # checks if QApplication already exists 
if not app: # create QApplication if it doesnt exist 
     app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)

This was a sufficient solution for my present needs.