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Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

blog.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#91

Post by jdiez17 »

eigenspace wrote: post #69

Okay, so I read the post and I'm still not clear on what the actual difference is between Mathematica and the Wolfram Engine. Does anyone have any insight here? Presumably this isn't intended to cannibalize Mathematica sales so I'd expect that many of the things I'm used to doing in Mathematica wouldn't work here but I don't really see any discussion of what it can't do.

Mathematica is basically a programming environment for the Wolfram Language. You can think of Mathematica as a desktop version of Jupyter Notebook for Wolfram Language.

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#92

Post by GordonS »

enriquto wrote: post #52
Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they open sourced it, it would be less than a year before you'd start seeing "Azure Wolfram" and "AWS Wolfram" and so on and I can sort of understand why he might not want that to happen.

> If they open sourced it, it would be less than a year before you'd start seeing "Azure Wolfram" and "AWS Wolfram" and using an AGPL licence, there would be no danger for them!

There are ways around this. I quite like what TimescaleDB have done, with most features OSS, and the more advanced features are under an open source license that permits use for those building a product around it, but preventing TimescaleDB as a service.

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#93

Post by kgwgk »

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #81
nfoz wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really depends which niche you're in. Matlab for example is also a major player.

Not in production environments. Push is (as it should be) towards open source.

Mathworks' revenue is $1bn, it has doubled in the last decade. Someone may be using Matlab.

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#94

Post by dangoor »

msla wrote: post #28
alain94040 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care that it's not open source, it's a unique technology. Actual algorithms solving actual problems correctly . None of that fuzzy search that you'd get if you used Google. It's an amazing tool in its domain.

My problem with it being closed-source is that it doesn't form a stable platform for my work. If they decide to change their product in incompatible ways in the future, I'm sunk. I have no recourse, I cannot fix the problem if it goes deep enough, and there are no other implementations. I learned this lesson (albeit from a distance) when Microsoft killed off Visual Basic 6 and replaced it with Visual Basic .Net.

I've got no stake in this, but I'll note that from the claims Wolfram has made, they've got a 30 year track record in which notebooks going back to 1.0 still run in the latest version.

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#95

Post by eigenspace »

jdiez17 wrote: post #91
eigenspace wrote: post #69

Okay, so I read the post and I'm still not clear on what the actual difference is between Mathematica and the Wolfram Engine. Does anyone have any insight here? Presumably this isn't intended to cannibalize Mathematica sales so I'd expect that many of the things I'm used to doing in Mathematica wouldn't work here but I don't really see any discussion of what it can't do.

Mathematica is basically a programming environment for the Wolfram Language. You can think of Mathematica as a desktop version of Jupyter Notebook for Wolfram Language.

I realize that. But what I said was that I'm not clear on what the 'Wolfram Engine' is and what it cannot do. It doesn't seem like a full implementation of the Wolfram Language for free, but I don't actually know.

Or is it that it's missing the Mathematica front end but has a full backend kernel implementation?

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#96

Post by reikonomusha »

nikofeyn wrote: post #90
reikonomusha wrote: post #3

> Why Aren’t You Using Our Technology? It’s not open source. Even if the engine is “free”, I don’t want to build an open source product with it and hope to be granted a “free production license.” If I build something on my own time I don’t want to ask my employer to purchase a “production license” as soon as it becomes useful. Wolfram believes that mathematics software (or “computational knowledge” or whatever he cal…

> But that’s completely at odds with how most software engineers work these days. Most software is grounded in an open source development and deployment tool chain. There is a market for proprietary developer tools, but it had been dwindling since its prime-time in the 90s. that is simply not true and a rather insular view. i build large complex systems, and all of it is done with proprietary software. in fact, it is…

I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but I am claiming it’s uncommon to use closed source developer tools (compilers, interpreters, standard libraries, etc.). The mere fact that the most popular programming languages in the world are provided as open source implementations is a testament to that. There are some stragglers. I think K is closed source. Commercial implementations of APL are closed source but somewhat popular.

“Source [partially] available” and “open source” are generally considered distinct concepts these days. See for instance [0] or even look up what Google’s dictionary says about the term.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#97

Post by nisuni »

nisuni wrote: post #21
reikonomusha wrote: post #3

> Why Aren’t You Using Our Technology? It’s not open source. Even if the engine is “free”, I don’t want to build an open source product with it and hope to be granted a “free production license.” If I build something on my own time I don’t want to ask my employer to purchase a “production license” as soon as it becomes useful. Wolfram believes that mathematics software (or “computational knowledge” or whatever he cal…

Do you use Google?

You replied to a different question, and declared that question nonsense.

My question is: do you use Google?

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#99

Post by reikonomusha »

enriquto wrote: post #85
reikonomusha wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maxima is a fine piece of software, and I’m a huge proponent of its development, but doesn’t compete in the breadth or depth of Mathematica (or Maple) at all.

It certainly competes due to the fact of being free software, which is a strong requirement of my workflow. I can try Mathematica and Maple (and love them), but ultimately I have to end using a free software solution.

Indeed, being open source is a major advantage!

Re: Free Wolfram Engine for Developers

#100

Post by ras_west »

enriquto wrote: post #59
criley2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But that’s completely at odds with how most software engineers work these days. Most software is grounded in an open source development and deployment tool chain. Imagine saying this with a straight face. Maybe in web development, but the vast majority of programmers are using closed source tools to produce closed source software. You're either thinking of a tiny picture vs the whole picture (web devs vs programming…

In applied math, data science, statistics, the OP is right: free software is the norm.

I think there are people in applied math data science and statistics who use Windows and OSX.
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