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Mathematica v12.1

writings.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: Mathematica v12.1

#61

Post by vtail »

reikonomusha wrote: post #57
vtail wrote: post #55

Many people on this and similar threads rightly question whether results received with the help of a closed source software are reproducible. I think it's a fair question, but these discussions often miss a couple of important points. First, there is a question of theoretical vs. practical reproducibility: true, in _theory_, an open-source codebase with many millions of lines of code of highly complex transformation…

Reproducible has a much simpler meaning than that you describe: it’s feasible for any scientist to recreate the result perpetually. While inspection of the methods might help one understand the result—and I think itself holds a great deal of value to especially mathematicians—just the simple ability to compute the answers yourself without binding yourself to a contract or paying $1000’s of dollars in license fees is…

Regarding your second point - I don't have a horse in that race, other than tremendously enjoying my personal license that I pay for out of my pocket; but I found their arguments[1] quite reasonable. I think there was an HN discussion about this some time ago.

[1] https://blog.wolfram.com/2019/04/02/why-wolfram-tech-isnt-op...

Re: Mathematica v12.1

#62

Post by reikonomusha »

The language began as something of a gem and each release seems to be muddying it up. Another commenter already mentioned the string argument to make a data structure. It also looks like built-in methods on these objects are also strings.

The metadata and annotation facilities seem unclear. Sometimes they change the appearance and behavior of the object, sometimes they don’t.

Some functions now are curried by default. The choice probably makes symbolic programming and pattern matching trickier since it breeds a variety of representations of the same concept. (Pattern matching and rewriting strongly favor canonicalization.)

All and all, it’s beginning to look like the core Wolfram Language is beginning to tremble under its own complexity. I can’t imagine coping with buggy code at all in this framework.

Re: Mathematica v12.1

#63

Post by reikonomusha »

vtail wrote: post #61
reikonomusha wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reproducible has a much simpler meaning than that you describe: it’s feasible for any scientist to recreate the result perpetually. While inspection of the methods might help one understand the result—and I think itself holds a great deal of value to especially mathematicians—just the simple ability to compute the answers yourself without binding yourself to a contract or paying $1000’s of dollars in license fees is…

Regarding your second point - I don't have a horse in that race, other than tremendously enjoying my personal license that I pay for out of my pocket; but I found their arguments[1] quite reasonable. I think there was an HN discussion about this some time ago. [1] https://blog.wolfram.com/2019/04/02/why-wolfram-tech-isnt-op...

I find the arguments confused and lacking. Many of those arguments conflate “open source” with “community driven”. Rarely did they make a compelling case as to how availability of the source code would hurt the customers.

And many, many amazing open source teams have demonstrated that even including community driven design in some cases does not hamper the quality of the product. Look at Apple and Swift, or Rust, as examples.

I read their arguments as “we do not know how to engage with a community effort because it’s not in our company DNA” under the facade of supposedly legitimate reasons.

Re: Mathematica v12.1

#64

Post by vtail »

reikonomusha wrote: post #63
vtail wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding your second point - I don't have a horse in that race, other than tremendously enjoying my personal license that I pay for out of my pocket; but I found their arguments[1] quite reasonable. I think there was an HN discussion about this some time ago. [1] https://blog.wolfram.com/2019/04/02/why-wolfram-tech-isnt-op...

I find the arguments confused and lacking. Many of those arguments conflate “open source” with “community driven”. Rarely did they make a compelling case as to how availability of the source code would hurt the customers. And many, many amazing open source teams have demonstrated that even including community driven design in some cases does not hamper the quality of the product. Look at Apple and Swift, or Rust, as…

Swift is a great example, but don't forget that is essentially funded by Apple. It would look very different if it would be a true community effort.

Rust I'm not very familiar with: how much of their funding is dependent on Mozilla, at least for the core developer(s)?

Also, a language + a standard library has a (much!) smaller surface comparing to Wolfram's vision.

Re: Mathematica v12.1

#65

Post by dr_zoidberg »

saboot wrote: post #53

I'm a physicist and I've used mathematica sparingly off and on for several years, mostly manipulating symbolic formulas. I still do not understand what I'm doing half the time. Mostly just googling and stackoverflow answers get me by. For example, I don't understand why I can't use subscripts as symbols? Any recommendations on trying to 'get' mathematica?

That's whay working on CS feels like all the time! /sarcasm

Jokes aside, probably you're experiencing the part in learning a programming language where you can think what yu want to do but don't understand it enough to express it correctly. Usually the solution to this is more practice in said language, which is when pet projects come in handy.

Maybe you can try implementing something that already exists from scratch? That way you can always look for help online implementing it, if you need it, but you get to excercise the language a bit.

This way it takes effort and time, for sure, but it'll help you get a good grip.

Re: Mathematica v12.1

#66

Post by balfirevic »

HPsquared wrote: post #41
mehrdadn wrote: post #29

Is there any reason not to call Mathematica AI at this point? I swear some of the things it does look more like black magic than what we call AI nowadays...

I'd call it more of an "expert system" - it has a HUGE amount of rules and methods built-in, but at the end of the day it's all deterministic.

> but at the end of the day it's all deterministic.

That's not what's preventing it from being AI.

Re: Mathematica v12.1

#67

Post by reikonomusha »

vtail wrote: post #64
reikonomusha wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the arguments confused and lacking. Many of those arguments conflate “open source” with “community driven”. Rarely did they make a compelling case as to how availability of the source code would hurt the customers. And many, many amazing open source teams have demonstrated that even including community driven design in some cases does not hamper the quality of the product. Look at Apple and Swift, or Rust, as…

Swift is a great example, but don't forget that is essentially funded by Apple. It would look very different if it would be a true community effort. Rust I'm not very familiar with: how much of their funding is dependent on Mozilla, at least for the core developer(s)? Also, a language + a standard library has a (much!) smaller surface comparing to Wolfram's vision.

They have funding; that’s great! Exactly what I’m saying is that these projects manage to be community run (to some extent) while still remaining successful.

If Wolfram’s reason to not publish the source code is that they believe they would no longer have a business model, they should list that as the One Reason, not 12 gaslighting reasons.

Re: Mathematica v12.1

#68

Post by garmaine »

davnn wrote: post #45
carry_bit wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in WL strings are commonly used in a matter similar to enums in other languages. The thing to keep in mind is that WL is based on symbolic replacement. You normally wouldn't define that kind of function as taking in a parameter (i.e., CreateDataStructure[x_] := ...), rather you'd define it for each case separately (i.e., CreateDataStructure["LinkedList"] := ...).

Well.. if constants were a thing you could probably also pattern match them.

It's a constant string :P

Re: Mathematica v12.1

#69

Post by jxy »

saagarjha wrote: post #11

ds = CreateDataStructure["LinkedList"] String keys to access types is kind of yucky, to be honest :( Couldn't there be a better way to represent this than having to look up the documentation ( https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/$DataStructures.h... ) to see what would work?

For interpreted languages, it doesn't matter semantically whether you use strings or not. It's always a run-time value that needs to get resolved when the interpreter gets there.

Re: Mathematica v12.1

#70

Post by vtail »

reikonomusha wrote: post #67
vtail wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swift is a great example, but don't forget that is essentially funded by Apple. It would look very different if it would be a true community effort. Rust I'm not very familiar with: how much of their funding is dependent on Mozilla, at least for the core developer(s)? Also, a language + a standard library has a (much!) smaller surface comparing to Wolfram's vision.

They have funding; that’s great! Exactly what I’m saying is that these projects manage to be community run (to some extent) while still remaining successful. If Wolfram’s reason to not publish the source code is that they believe they would no longer have a business model, they should list that as the One Reason, not 12 gaslighting reasons.

Well, they clearly think their model works for them. If you think otherwise, it's on you to convince them that they should change their model, or start your own effort if you think it will benefit humanity. I don't think they necessarily need to "defend" their business choices.
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