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Mathematica 14

writings.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: Mathematica 14

#51

Post by Fbnkigffb66tfbj »

rayxi271828 wrote: post #5

Ask HN: I've never met someone who uses Mathematica, I imagine its users are even rarer outside the academic circles. I've met many who use Matlab, R, Python, Excel, etc. If you're using it, what are you using it for exactly? In what way is it irreplaceable by other tools out there, if at all?

I know that Citibank's foreign exchange market making desk was using Mathematica, at least they were 15 years ago.

It's unusual in the quant world though. I think they had hired a bunch of PhDs who had spent too much time in academia.

Re: Mathematica 14

#52

Post by vzaliva »

I enjoyed using Mathematica at work and grew quite fond of it. After the project concluded, I was keen to continue using it for personal projects, so I invested in the "Home" edition. Although it was not inexpensive, I quickly discovered it had certain limitations, such as a restricted number of computational kernels. There was also a limitation on how many personal computers I could use it on (even one at a time!). Another annoyance was the license manager, which required an internet connection – so I wasn't able to use it on an international flight (this was a while ago). I once suggested that a company I worked for should adopt it, but the license cost was prohibitively high, at over $3,000 per user.

To sum up, it's a great tool, but you'll need to invest considerable time to master it. Then there's the risk that this time could be wasted due to its expense.

Re: Mathematica 14

#53

Post by Tomte »

baq wrote: post #32
andsoitis wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s only recently that I’ve begun to properly internalize just how broad the implications of having a computational language really are—even though, ironically, I’ve spent much of my life engaged precisely in the consuming task of building the world’s only large-scale computational language. Exemplar of humility.

Wolfram should get a dedicated title tag (Wolfram) and hn rules should be amended with ‘this dude is a bit full of himself, everybody knows that, no need to bring it up’ Saying that as someone who’s consistently surprised by just how big his ego seems to be, getting bigger each year, didn’t think it’s possible.

The admin has already decreed exactly that. People just love to whine.

Re: Mathematica 14

#54

Post by noneoftheabove »

mr_mitm wrote: post #44
baq wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine jupyter notebooks with a nice lispish language and the most complete standard library ever developed. Haven’t used it for almost 15 years, it was great back then, nowadays when I need something more than a simple calculator I go to wolframalpha - it’s basically Mathematica, but with one line of input instead of a notebook.

It's noteworthy that Mathematica invented the notebook UI that Jupyter ended up popularizing. It has some strengths, but since its syntax highlighting is coupled to the kernel state it didn't have an undo function for the longest time. Also as big vim fan it's disappointing to not being able to use your favorite editor.

No. Incorrect. There was a precursor that had the idea Of notebook but didn’t call it that. By your logic Wolfram invented symbolic computation, Computational complexity and many other things. Let’s Not go down that route please.

Re: Mathematica 14

#55

Post by hacketthfk »

baq wrote: post #32
andsoitis wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s only recently that I’ve begun to properly internalize just how broad the implications of having a computational language really are—even though, ironically, I’ve spent much of my life engaged precisely in the consuming task of building the world’s only large-scale computational language. Exemplar of humility.

Wolfram should get a dedicated title tag (Wolfram) and hn rules should be amended with ‘this dude is a bit full of himself, everybody knows that, no need to bring it up’ Saying that as someone who’s consistently surprised by just how big his ego seems to be, getting bigger each year, didn’t think it’s possible.

[flagged]

Re: Mathematica 14

#56

Post by chaxor »

seanhunter wrote: post #18
throwup238 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was honestly expecting Wolfram himself to have claimed the invention of LLMs or transformers, probably by saying it’s really a scaled up implementation of some other function in Mathematica.

Joking aside, he sort of implies this in his essay explaining GPT models[1] At some level this reminds one of the idea of universal computation (and my Principle of Computational Equivalence), but, as I’ll discuss later... And his "Principle of Computational Equivalence" is [2] "There are various ways to state the Principle of Computational Equivalence, but probably the most general is just to say that almost all pro…

This is absurd and cannot be true.

Shmidhuber beat both of these guys easily with his paper from decades before these amateurs even claimed to start working on it.

Re: Mathematica 14

#57

Post by hacketthfk »

danpalmer wrote: post #23
andsoitis wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s only recently that I’ve begun to properly internalize just how broad the implications of having a computational language really are—even though, ironically, I’ve spent much of my life engaged precisely in the consuming task of building the world’s only large-scale computational language. Exemplar of humility.

It sounds like once you get the zen of Mathematica, it’s a truly exceptional tool to work with. It’s a shame that the only person it seems has get the zen of Mathematica is Stephen Wolfram himself.

It is a bit Zen, but if you don't use it for a few months you forget everything because the syntax is so different.

Re: Mathematica 14

#58

Post by _kwef »

baq wrote: post #32
andsoitis wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s only recently that I’ve begun to properly internalize just how broad the implications of having a computational language really are—even though, ironically, I’ve spent much of my life engaged precisely in the consuming task of building the world’s only large-scale computational language. Exemplar of humility.

Wolfram should get a dedicated title tag (Wolfram) and hn rules should be amended with ‘this dude is a bit full of himself, everybody knows that, no need to bring it up’ Saying that as someone who’s consistently surprised by just how big his ego seems to be, getting bigger each year, didn’t think it’s possible.

When you've done as much as him any kind of ego that you may possess becomes justified.

Re: Mathematica 14

#59

Post by rsecora »

noneoftheabove wrote: post #54
mr_mitm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's noteworthy that Mathematica invented the notebook UI that Jupyter ended up popularizing. It has some strengths, but since its syntax highlighting is coupled to the kernel state it didn't have an undo function for the longest time. Also as big vim fan it's disappointing to not being able to use your favorite editor.

No. Incorrect. There was a precursor that had the idea Of notebook but didn’t call it that. By your logic Wolfram invented symbolic computation, Computational complexity and many other things. Let’s Not go down that route please.

Mathcad has the notebook metaphor (calculations embedded in live formatted documents) by 1986. Mathcad predates Mathematica by 1 year. [1]

[1] Mathcad 2.0 Ad from 1987, the oldest I have found in 10 min. https://books.google.es/books?id=sc4TnHAYBSUC&pg=PA42

Re: Mathematica 14

#60

Post by qsort »

hacketthfk wrote: post #55
baq wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wolfram should get a dedicated title tag (Wolfram) and hn rules should be amended with ‘this dude is a bit full of himself, everybody knows that, no need to bring it up’ Saying that as someone who’s consistently surprised by just how big his ego seems to be, getting bigger each year, didn’t think it’s possible.

[flagged]

*μ-Wolframs
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