Woxi: Wolfram Mathematica Reimplementation in Rust • Hacker News Board

Re: Woxi: Wolfram Mathematica Reimplementation in Rust

#41

Post by mountainriver » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC

s3p wrote: post #26

the__alchemist wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the list of contributors to your project, I am not sure this starting location is optimally suited to the task of building a foundation for polished, reliable, expandable software.

The sneering on HN really has no end. This is a good project! I for one am very excited to see an interpreter born out of rust.

It’s so obnoxious

Re: Woxi: Wolfram Mathematica Reimplementation in Rust

#42

Post by mountainriver » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

the__alchemist wrote: post #31

adius wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's having ~ 5000 tests already. Used correctly, AI agents can help you improve the quality of the code!

Do you see why this perspective is a red flag on its own?

No I don’t, review your code

Re: Woxi: Wolfram Mathematica Reimplementation in Rust

#43

Post by anandijain » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

This is cool! I've always wanted a polished kernel on the terminal. I spent a lot of time a few years ago writing my own Wolfram Kernel. It was a blast to understand how a pattern matching (symbolic) language is implemented.

https://github.com/anandijain/cas8.rs

Re: Woxi: Wolfram Mathematica Reimplementation in Rust

#44

Post by mountainriver » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

throawayonthe wrote: post #33

adius wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a massive undertaking would be almost impossible without AI agents, so yeah, they help me. But with around 5000 tests, they are actually helping to improve the software quality!

are all the tests hand written or are some agent-contributed? curious

What’s the difference if you review the code getting merged?

Re: Woxi: Wolfram Mathematica Reimplementation in Rust

#45

Post by adius » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

esafak wrote: post #30

I wonder if it would make a good Zeppelin interpreter. https://zeppelin.apache.org/

Oh cool, haven't heard of this before. Could be a good fit - I'll have to try it out some day!

Re: Woxi: Wolfram Mathematica Reimplementation in Rust

#46

Post by tock » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC

adius wrote: post #24

fnord77 wrote: post #14

vibe coded?

Such a massive undertaking would be almost impossible without AI agents, so yeah, they help me. But with around 5000 tests, they are actually helping to improve the software quality!

Did you actually review 313,397 LOC written by claude? And you wrote the tests? That's honestly very impressive if yes.

Re: Woxi: Wolfram Mathematica Reimplementation in Rust

#47

Post by ComplexSystems » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 4:56 PM UTC

the__alchemist wrote: post #31

adius wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's having ~ 5000 tests already. Used correctly, AI agents can help you improve the quality of the code!

Do you see why this perspective is a red flag on its own?

I certainly don't. If a software developer has found a way to use these tools that works well for them and produces good results, that's a good thing.

Re: Woxi: Wolfram Mathematica Reimplementation in Rust

#48

Post by adius » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

s3p wrote: post #28

amelius wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the Mathematica language is the least interesting aspect of the Mathematica system. Closely followed by the interactive notebooks.

First I believe there is no such thing as the Mathematica language, it's Wolframscript which is useful in a bunch of different applications. And second, if you don't have access to a $1000 / yr wolfram subscription, this would be the next best thing.

They rebranded it to Wolfram Language a few years ago (which I actually appreciate, as it is so much more than just "math" by now!)

https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2013/02/what-should-we-c...

Re: Woxi: Wolfram Mathematica Reimplementation in Rust

#49

Post by 3eb7988a1663 » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 5:17 PM UTC

rustyhancock wrote: post #37

the__alchemist wrote: post #11

I love Rust for mathematical and scientific tasks (I am building the structural bio crate infrastructure), and I love Mathematica and have a personal sub. I should be the audience, but... What makes Mathematica great, IMO, is the polish and overall experience created by consistent work with applications in mind over decades. So, I look at this project with skepticism regarding its utility.

Similarly I'm not sure Octave ever really got that polish to compete with MATLAB. SPSS is hilariously painful to use. Still it's only losing ground ever so slowly. PSPP remains almost unheard of among SPSS core users.

I am not sure Octave ever had to put on that much polish. It just had to be decent enough to save $$$$ vs a Matlab license. If it can drop-in run the code that has been keeping the lab going for decades, good enough.

Re: Woxi: Wolfram Mathematica Reimplementation in Rust

#50

Post by adius » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

foobarqux wrote: post #40

adius wrote: post #2

Hi, I'm the main developer. We're steadily getting closer to the next release which will support most features of Mathematica 1.0 plus some of the most popular newer functions (> 900 overall!). AMA!

Have you considered using quickcheck/random/property-based testing with LLM code generation to automate function implementation?

Yeah, I've already looked into it, but decided to keep developing it "example driven" for now. Aka I'm playing around with it, and whenever I find something that's broken I keep a note of it and then I pick those notes one by one and implement them. Once the most common things are implemented I will start writing property tests to catch all the edge cases of each feature.