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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

#21

Post by logicchains »

sterlind wrote: post #12
bowsamic wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

ran into this myself just today, but with Symbolics.jl instead of SymPy. I just needed an algebra scratchpad, and Symbolics was.. barren. and uninviting. I thought of reaching for Mathematica but resorted to pencil and paper, like a barbarian. same deal with solvers more generally. the coin-or stuff (e.g. Cbc) is slow and buggy, Cplex and Gurobi are far better but very expensive. where are the PhDs in this field? wha…

>I just needed an algebra scratchpad, and Symbolics was.. barren. and uninviting. I thought of reaching for Mathematica but resorted to pencil and paper, like a barbarian.

Have you tried Maxima? It seems more ergonomic.

Re: Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica

#22

Post by yccs27 »

bdowling wrote: post #14

At least in the United States, there’s nothing to stop someone from independently implementing the Wolfram Language and libraries and not paying Wolfram anything. See Oracle v. Google (U.S. 2021), which held that copyright law does not protect libraries (e.g. structure, function names, semantics) and APIs because they’re necessary for compatibility/interoperability. The highest court said that was fair use for Google…

Unfortunately I don't think this will happen: The Wolfram Language has a _huge_ library of functions from various domains, which is where most of its strength comes from. If you had the time and money to reimplement all of them, you could just make a competing product with better API. I don't think there is enough commercial interest in running existing Wolfram Language code without Mathematica.

Re: Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica

#23

Post by upbeat_general »

bdowling wrote: post #14

At least in the United States, there’s nothing to stop someone from independently implementing the Wolfram Language and libraries and not paying Wolfram anything. See Oracle v. Google (U.S. 2021), which held that copyright law does not protect libraries (e.g. structure, function names, semantics) and APIs because they’re necessary for compatibility/interoperability. The highest court said that was fair use for Google…

I think that would be rather pointless. From using Mathematica/The Wolfram Language, the cool part was not the language design but the powerful functions. It’s not like wolfram language code is particularly widespread so better/open versions don’t necessarily need the same language. They need the powerful backend.

Re: Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica

#24

Post by sfriedr »

sterlind wrote: post #12
bowsamic wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

ran into this myself just today, but with Symbolics.jl instead of SymPy. I just needed an algebra scratchpad, and Symbolics was.. barren. and uninviting. I thought of reaching for Mathematica but resorted to pencil and paper, like a barbarian. same deal with solvers more generally. the coin-or stuff (e.g. Cbc) is slow and buggy, Cplex and Gurobi are far better but very expensive. where are the PhDs in this field? wha…

> I thought of reaching for Mathematica but resorted to pencil and paper, like a barbarian.

A very computer-science perspective with the obligatory dose of hubris.

Pencil and paper is continuing to serve a much older, much more consolidated discipline (mathematics) well for... ever since paper was invented.

Re: Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica

#25

Post by catchclose8919 »

...open-source when?

There's basically zero widely used programming languages that are not open-source, get to grips with this ffs. Esp. since Wolfram strives to be somewhat-general-purpose in a way (it's not smth like eg. K who's niche anyway) and having an open-source version is crucial in this segment.

Hire some ppl (sales, mgmt, product etc.) who know how to make money from open-source (get some from RedHat, IBM etc.) and make this technology accessible to not have all this effort practically wasted, eg. I'd love to use Wolfram instead of Python, but non-opensource is just a no-go for any foundational technology (language, framework, server).

Re: Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica

#26

Post by catchclose8919 »

dhdc wrote: post #17
jiggawatts wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Counter example: MATLAB. Proprietory software, proprietory language, yet it remains unrivalled in control engineering, DSP, communication systems and so on. I genuinely hope that Octave can take off and trade blows with MATLAB face to face, but not sure if that will ever happen simply because of the amount of money MathWorks is pumping into developing toolboxes.

> yet it remains unrivalled in control engineering

No, its usage is just declining slower in those areas because ppl don't want unnecessary change introducing unnecessary defects, esp since safety and reliability matters a lot for some equipments, and also engineers spend time on smth else than learning new languages and frameworks.

In 20 years Matlab will be as legacy as Fortran is now, still some left but mostly forgone.

Re: Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica

#27

Post by catchclose8919 »

bowsamic wrote: post #9
jiggawatts wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

...symbolic computation is a niche ...but Wolfram/Mathematics is also a very good general purpose language/tool.

It would be insane value for everyone if the symbolic niche could also be covered by a general purpose language...

Re: Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica

#28

Post by bowsamic »

sterlind wrote: post #12
bowsamic wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

ran into this myself just today, but with Symbolics.jl instead of SymPy. I just needed an algebra scratchpad, and Symbolics was.. barren. and uninviting. I thought of reaching for Mathematica but resorted to pencil and paper, like a barbarian. same deal with solvers more generally. the coin-or stuff (e.g. Cbc) is slow and buggy, Cplex and Gurobi are far better but very expensive. where are the PhDs in this field? wha…

Sympy is good as a scratchpad I think. For my case I needed minimal state space realisations of MIMO transfer matrices. In mathematica this is just two functions. Implementing this in Python could take months

Re: Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica

#30

Post by dhdc »

catchclose8919 wrote: post #26
dhdc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter example: MATLAB. Proprietory software, proprietory language, yet it remains unrivalled in control engineering, DSP, communication systems and so on. I genuinely hope that Octave can take off and trade blows with MATLAB face to face, but not sure if that will ever happen simply because of the amount of money MathWorks is pumping into developing toolboxes.

> yet it remains unrivalled in control engineering No, its usage is just declining slower in those areas because ppl don't want unnecessary change introducing unnecessary defects, esp since safety and reliability matters a lot for some equipments, and also engineers spend time on smth else than learning new languages and frameworks. In 20 years Matlab will be as legacy as Fortran is now, still some left but mostly fo…

> In 20 years Matlab will be as legacy as Fortran is now

Not if MathWorks keep offering discounts to universities for putting MATLAB in the courses, gotta get those undergrads "hooked" early before graduating.

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