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Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica

writings.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica

#6

Post by n-e-w »

Rather than just bashing Stephen's personality and rehashing Cosma Shalizi's driveby on NKOS, can we try and focus on the technical accomplishment that Mathematica represents?

It really is an astounding system. If you enjoy functional programming, the language is super expressive and productive. The integrated libraries are fantastic -- especially if you want to chain together different knowledge domains through a consistent interface and syntax. You can get the entire Wolfram Alpha knowledgebase and curated datasets to use in your programs immediately.

The front-end is just lightyears in front of Jupyter notebooks in just about every conceivable way.

This isn't to hide that there are some frustrating things about the language (like, machine learning development has just stopped dead after a couple of really great years of feature dev...why?) and, especially, the organisation and some of its personalities. But the product -- it really should get a lot more kudos and wow factor based on real accomplishments and features that are live, in the real world.

I love Wolfram stuff.

Re: Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica

#7

Post by spoonjim »

n-e-w wrote: post #6

Rather than just bashing Stephen's personality and rehashing Cosma Shalizi's driveby on NKOS, can we try and focus on the technical accomplishment that Mathematica represents? It really is an astounding system. If you enjoy functional programming, the language is super expressive and productive. The integrated libraries are fantastic -- especially if you want to chain together different knowledge domains through a co…

I’ve come around on Stephen Wolfram. His puffery essentially hurts nobody besides perhaps those close to him, it’s easy to tune out, while his ambition has produced this really wonderful piece of software.

Re: Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica

#8

Post by jiggawatts »

n-e-w wrote: post #6

Rather than just bashing Stephen's personality and rehashing Cosma Shalizi's driveby on NKOS, can we try and focus on the technical accomplishment that Mathematica represents? It really is an astounding system. If you enjoy functional programming, the language is super expressive and productive. The integrated libraries are fantastic -- especially if you want to chain together different knowledge domains through a co…

The saddest thing about Mathematica is that despite the incredible level of effort invested into it by some of the smartest people on the planet, it will inevitably be relegated to the dustbin of history.

As a proprietary language and kernel, it can never compete long-term with open source alternatives.

It's one thing to have a proprietary product, but for decades now proprietary languages have been a no-go for practically everyone. Even formerly closed languages have been opened sourced, such as Java and C#.

There is no other use for Wolfram Language scripts outside of Mathematica, which comes with a "license server". That's... a dead end.

Can I publish Wolfram code in Docker Hub and expect it to work (legally)? No.

Can I throw some Wolfram code into an Azure Function and have it compute something for me on demand? Nope.

Can I embed Wolfram code into a C# app, publish it on GitHub, and have other people be able to use it without forking out $thousands for a Mathematica license? Nope!

And on and on...

Python, Julia, and Jupyter notebooks will simply wipe out all usage of Mathematica outside of a few esoteric fields. As you said, they're all markedly inferior in almost every way, except for one critical one: they're open and extensible.

You mentioned AI/ML having stopped dead in Mathematica. I noticed that too. I wanted to test some GPU-hosted ML stuff recently that's not the standard Pytorch/Tensorflow type of thing, checked Mathematica, gave up, and I'm now using Julia.

If Mathematica was more open, there would be no "dead end" there, I could simply extend it. Or more importantly, other people would have already.

Re: Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica

#9

Post by bowsamic »

jiggawatts wrote: post #8
n-e-w wrote: post #6

Rather than just bashing Stephen's personality and rehashing Cosma Shalizi's driveby on NKOS, can we try and focus on the technical accomplishment that Mathematica represents? It really is an astounding system. If you enjoy functional programming, the language is super expressive and productive. The integrated libraries are fantastic -- especially if you want to chain together different knowledge domains through a co…

The saddest thing about Mathematica is that despite the incredible level of effort invested into it by some of the smartest people on the planet, it will inevitably be relegated to the dustbin of history. As a proprietary language and kernel, it can never compete long-term with open source alternatives. It's one thing to have a proprietary product , but for decades now proprietary languages have been a no-go for prac…

I'll believe it when I see it, because right now there is no alternative. I wrote a piece of physics software recently and sympy (and indeed python in general) was so lacking in features that I had to write half of the software as mathematica packages, half of it as python. I would have implemented those functions myself but they are actually extremely non-trivial and I wouldn't be surprised if just one of the basic functions I needed had many years of R&D and thousands of lines and edge cases.

Until there is an open source software that can match the raw symbolic power combined with the huge libraries nothing can touch it for a lot of people.

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