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Mathematica Version 12 Released

blog.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: Mathematica Version 12 Released

#91

Post by armitron »

I know Lisp and more specifically, Lisp machines, have greatly influenced Mathematica but when I read that Wolfram is using Mathematica as a computer shell I can't help but think that he's taken the Symbolics Genera paradigm and ran with it. I'm certainly happy about that since nobody else seems to have realized how well it fits in with the current era of having to deal with ever-increasing information flows in disparate domains.

But I'm also regretting that Mathematica is not opensource since I'm convinced this constitutes a great barrier that the vast majority of programmers today will not attempt to cross.

Re: Mathematica Version 12 Released

#92

Post by ken »

mirekrusin wrote: post #5

I know I'm dreaming, Stephen is rather on the opposite side, but if he would open source it all/most of it, he'd be one of the most famous people around. I wonder how he'd move financially wise with that kind of bold move?

Wolfram Research today has several hundred employees. Are you proposing they would keep working on Mathematica, and would they continue to get paid for it?

Re: Mathematica Version 12 Released

#93

Post by badsectoracula »

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #54
nikofeyn wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and python is a jumbled mess of versions, package managers, packages, distributions, etc. that isn't a good thing either.

Which perfectly illustrates how important being free and open source is. In spite of not having commercial support and versioning shenangians, people still choose Python over the commercial alternatives.

The vast majority of people want stuff for free, there isn't any grand reasoning beyond that for choosing Python.

Re: Mathematica Version 12 Released

#94

Post by laythea »

jakobegger wrote: post #39

I wish Mathematica was more affordable. I loved using it as a student, but now I can no longer afford it. A professional license costs 3500€. Which is probably worth it if you use it every day, but not so much if you just use it just once a month to make a graph or integrate something. They have a "hobby" license for 350€, which is reasonable, but according to their license it can't be used for anything work related.…

This is how compilers and IDE's were, back in the day. Things changed and now community editions are rife.

Maybe this will happen someday with Maths software.

Re: Mathematica Version 12 Released

#95

Post by patrec »

brianpgordon wrote: post #63
cwyers wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, looking at that list... most of it actually seems reasonable to me. Quality software costs money, and that money comes from somewhere. The problem is network effects. The blog post is right that if you are running a large deployment of things like R or Python, you are likely paying vendors and getting support contracts and all these things so that it's not really free-as-in-beer to you. But there are a…

Some of that list looks reasonable to me (mainly what you pointed out, that software development costs money), but there's a heaping dose of old-Microsoft-style FUD about open-source ("Because open-source projects are directed by their contributors, there is a risk of hijacking by interest groups whose view of the future is not aligned with yours") mixed in there too. The core argument, though, seems to be that the W…

I don't think wolfram is a special case, it's just a complex end-user product that's polished and innovative.

I struggle to think of open source end-user product that has:

- technical innovation - polished UI/UX/documentation - a problem domain of moderate to high complexity

Can you name any?

Re: Mathematica Version 12 Released

#96

Post by 4thaccount »

carlob wrote: post #25
chobytes wrote: post #21

Really excited to try the new SQL interface. The old one was less than pleasant to work with. The Unity stuff is kind of unexpected and I’m curious to try that out too. ...Now I just have to see if my student license lets me upgrade...

> Really excited to try the new SQL interface. The old one was less than pleasant to work with. Cool! I hope people find it useful, that's where most of my past year and a half went :)

Thanks for the hard work in the Mathematica SQL area.

I know y'all have lots and lots of database documentation, but I've had trouble commenting from Mathematica to Oracle via ODBC. It's a tad confusing, but I'm sure I'm doing something simple wrong. In R, this was really easy, but surprisingly complicated in Mathematica. Do y'all have any kind of step by step doc in that arena? SQLite was of course easy, but I think Oracle requires the use of JDBC with Mathematica and that's where I get lost.

Re: Mathematica Version 12 Released

#97

Post by crodri54 »

chobytes wrote: post #60
jakobegger wrote: post #39

I wish Mathematica was more affordable. I loved using it as a student, but now I can no longer afford it. A professional license costs 3500€. Which is probably worth it if you use it every day, but not so much if you just use it just once a month to make a graph or integrate something. They have a "hobby" license for 350€, which is reasonable, but according to their license it can't be used for anything work related.…

Yeah, I'm a student right now and I've come to really like mathematica... I'll probably even get the hobby license after school, but I don't think I could justify the cost of using it professionally.

Since you're a student and enjoy using Mathematica, I would recommend taking a look at this http://www.wolfram.com/company/careers/ambassador/. It's an opportunity for student enthusiasts to share their use and interest on campus, in return Wolfram provides access to tech and other stuff noted.

Re: Mathematica Version 12 Released

#98

Post by brianpgordon »

patrec wrote: post #95
brianpgordon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of that list looks reasonable to me (mainly what you pointed out, that software development costs money), but there's a heaping dose of old-Microsoft-style FUD about open-source ("Because open-source projects are directed by their contributors, there is a risk of hijacking by interest groups whose view of the future is not aligned with yours") mixed in there too. The core argument, though, seems to be that the W…

I don't think wolfram is a special case, it's just a complex end-user product that's polished and innovative. I struggle to think of open source end-user product that has: - technical innovation - polished UI/UX/documentation - a problem domain of moderate to high complexity Can you name any?

Chrome, IntelliJ, Blender, RHEL, AOSP. Anyway, if he had restricted his argument to "polished software is hard with an open source business model" then I wouldn't be posting an unimpressed comment. Instead, the argument centers around Mathematica being a special case.

Re: Mathematica Version 12 Released

#99

Post by jbotz »

jwr wrote: post #48
phonon wrote: post #32

Still don't understand why they don't have a good JSON REST API story. It's like they have no expectation of Mathematica ever being useful in a server based production environment.

Hmm. I don't know about JSON and REST, but an API would definitely be interesting. In general, I think Wolfram (the company and the man himself) has a very narrow Mathematica-centric view of the world. Every feature begins and ends in the Mathematica notebook interface. That's very limiting. A good full API would let me use a sane interface (see my other comment about the horrible notebook interface experience with m…

I don't think you know what you're talking about. Mathematica is quite big in scope already, but then there's "The Wolfram Language" which is a f!%ing big vision of the world. Take a close look at it some time. Not to mention the audacity of "A New Kind of Science"! Whatever you may rightly accuse Steven Wolfram of, thinking small is not* one of his faults.
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