Introducing Tweet-a-Program • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#21

Post by mtrpcic » Fri, Sep 19, 2014, 1:46 AM UTC

blergh123 wrote: post #15

I'd really like an explanation of what's so amazing about this language. I saw the closing keynote today at Strangeloop and I can't understand why people are so excited. The language is proprietary and I don't feel like it's something I would actually use myself. The impression I got was that this project is an inventor's dream, which he has obviously obsessed over for some time, and it is an impressive feat, it just…

A large part of what's impressive about the language isn't the language, it's that it's tied together so many different data sources from around the globe that it can generate information that would be a nightmare to do manually.

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#22

Post by empressplay » Fri, Sep 19, 2014, 3:51 AM UTC

Hm. I thought running a bot on Twitter was against their TOS? Anyone know any better on this one? I'd love to run a chatbot on Twitter =)

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#23

Post by taliesinb » Fri, Sep 19, 2014, 3:51 AM UTC

echoes wrote: post #11

Ahh! I went to his SXSW talk this year and was absolutely entranced with the Wolfram language. It seemed like a real step forward in innovative thinking and actual "natural language" programming, but I was sad it's proprietary. I think the power of it is really undervalued - using all the knowledge of the wolfram-alpha engine to create objects? Such a neat idea! Imagine if Google built a similar language based on the…

In some sense it is surprising that Google hasn't done this already. After all, Mozilla has seen fit to work on Rust, which will soon replace C++ (god willing). But if you're organizing the world's information, don't you need a programming language that can work with that information in a first-class way?

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#24

Post by init0 » Fri, Sep 19, 2014, 3:52 AM UTC

I tried fib(100000) and it works!

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#25

Post by taliesinb » Fri, Sep 19, 2014, 3:54 AM UTC

jedanbik wrote: post #7

I love the work this company produces (especially Wolfram Alpha), but jeez, can't this guy give his employees some credit? People thought Jobs had an ego...

When he says "I" I mentally substitute "we". :-)

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#26

Post by droope » Fri, Sep 19, 2014, 3:57 AM UTC

empressplay wrote: post #22

Hm. I thought running a bot on Twitter was against their TOS? Anyone know any better on this one? I'd love to run a chatbot on Twitter =)

Nah not forbidden AFAIK. They even provide ean API you can use.

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#27

Post by jpatokal » Fri, Sep 19, 2014, 4:20 AM UTC

Whenever I see Wolfram/Mathematica stuff like this, I'm not entirely sure if it's incredibly brilliant and will replace all computing as we know it, or completely batshit insane and impenetrable unless you've spent 20 years learning it. Usually I lean towards the latter though, and this is supported by the fact that I've never seen anybody not employed by Wolfram do this kind of thing.

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#28

Post by kaoD » Fri, Sep 19, 2014, 4:35 AM UTC

smoyer wrote: post #20

ChuckMcM wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would be more interesting if you could dynamically create twitter bots. Then you could create a functional language in which tweets were expressions. Then you build the functional tree for your program and then tweet to its root node to execute it.

I've got code working for both Twitter and Jabber bots ... Would anyone be interested in working on this for fun?

I would, but how would you dynamically create twitter bots? Just create a swarm a make them reprogramable?

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#29

Post by samstave » Fri, Sep 19, 2014, 4:44 AM UTC

taliesinb wrote: post #25

jedanbik wrote: post #7

I love the work this company produces (especially Wolfram Alpha), but jeez, can't this guy give his employees some credit? People thought Jobs had an ego...

When he says "I" I mentally substitute "we". :-)

Thats like when Obama or Bush use the word Freedom....

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#30

Post by taliesinb » Fri, Sep 19, 2014, 5:58 AM UTC

jpatokal wrote: post #27

Whenever I see Wolfram/Mathematica stuff like this, I'm not entirely sure if it's incredibly brilliant and will replace all computing as we know it, or completely batshit insane and impenetrable unless you've spent 20 years learning it. Usually I lean towards the latter though, and this is supported by the fact that I've never seen anybody not employed by Wolfram do this kind of thing. See also: http://blog.wolfram.c…

Partly this is because we're so niche still that there just there just isn't a huge audience of developers to write large programs in WL yet, barring exceptions like [0]. I have no doubt that HN readers could do some amazing things in WL if they invested a modest amount of time in learning it.

[0] Emerald Therapeutics: http://emeraldcloudlab.com/