101–110 of 154 posts
It’s something special. Maybe a bit of a relic in its distribution (not open source, not that SaaSy), but it’s so well thought out.
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Why are people getting hung up on his hubris? If his megalomania gives us Mathematica who cares. It's a phenomenal accomplishment. It can, out of the box, do hundreds of things that'd take you weeks in python/julia/etc or would be entirely impossible for most in other systems.
I heard this before, but never asked, what is so special about Mathematica that cannot be done by other softwares?
It's not that you can't do it with other software, Mathematica just has all of it included by default, with very comprehensive documentation. And a slick UI.
Sure you can probably do most of it in python, but you'll find yourself chasing some obscure modules to get some things working. Even just to get arbitrary precision calculations for just about everything, for example. And don't forget the importance of a documentation that explains every option with examples (barring some obscure stuff, which can be quite annoying if you encounter it).
Since it's all integrated Mathematica allows you to go from calculating Sin[2] to arbitrary precision, to calculating the derivative of Sin[2x], to showing the first 10 terms of its Taylor series. All using the same sine function.
This does have some downsides. For one it's a pretty heavy program to run. And because they want to include everything they need to be quite opinionated about certain things. There are multiple ways to define fractional derivatives for instance, since they include a function for it they must have picked one of them. And then there are the name clashes, I once had to laugh quite loudly when I tried "Rotate[{0,1}, 45deg]" and got back an image of {0,1} at a 45 degree angle.
It is an impressive piece of engineering. Which could have had much more of an impact if it was a bit more open, but oh well...
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> 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.
Everyone else needs to deal with stuff like '#1 + #2 & @@@ # &/ @'.
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I heard this before, but never asked, what is so special about Mathematica that cannot be done by other softwares?
You should give it a spin. It’s an incredibly comprehensive Computer Algebra System with all the batteries included…. No, with a small nuclear reactor in the box. I’m just sad that I don’t have access anymore after college, being too cheap to pay for a license.
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It maybe be irrational, but the absolute arrogance of the author is off-putting and makes me reluctant to use any of his creations (which may be great I don't deny). I may have developed a heuristic that tells me to be very suspicious of people that are so sure and full of themselves as to become dangerous because they can be spectacularly wrong. It may have stemmed from the pandemic... So, sure, you are smart and cl…
I don't care about arrogance, but closed source languages have no place in the 21th century IMO. I could use it if they open sourced at least the compiler
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?
Mathematica is what I thought a computer would be like before I could really use one: A tool for arithmetics and math. Instead we get text processing, kitten photos and porn videos. Not that I have anything against either of these, but it was still a mild shock to find that the `ln` command does not, by a long shot, compute the natural logarithm in Unix. OK, even Mathematica makes me alias `Ln` to `Log`. So much for…
This is by far the most detailed announcement I have ever seen.
With kindness and nonzero envy: Should we expect any less from a man who affixes a laptop to himself so he doesn’t have to stop typing to go for a walk?
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Why are people getting hung up on his hubris? If his megalomania gives us Mathematica who cares. It's a phenomenal accomplishment. It can, out of the box, do hundreds of things that'd take you weeks in python/julia/etc or would be entirely impossible for most in other systems.
> Why are people getting hung up on his hubris? If his megalomania gives us Mathematica who cares. We've had some bad results taking that approach recently - which we really should have anticipated, with millenia-old stories warning us about it. For one thing, megalomaniacs tend to be frauds (perhaps because, to be a megalomaniac, it's necessary to lie to yourself); maybe Mathematica will turn out to be the FTX, or T…
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> Why are people getting hung up on his hubris? If his megalomania gives us Mathematica who cares. We've had some bad results taking that approach recently - which we really should have anticipated, with millenia-old stories warning us about it. For one thing, megalomaniacs tend to be frauds (perhaps because, to be a megalomaniac, it's necessary to lie to yourself); maybe Mathematica will turn out to be the FTX, or T…
Mathematica has been publicly available for 35 years now, this is the 14th release. The tool has worked extremely well and been tangible for decades, with the value during that period being in the customer's direct use. In what ways does this remind you of FTX or Tesla auto-pilot?