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Introducing Tweet-a-Program

blog.wolfram.com

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Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#41

Post by tragomaskhalos »

taliesinb wrote: post #30
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/

Time isn't the only investment required though is it? How much is even a single-seat licence?

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#43

Post by smoyer »

kaoD wrote: post #28
smoyer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I was thinking that we could run completely independent twitter bots that performed some function, (a low-level programming language function or some higher-level library function), then collaborate on a service that provided a function catalog. New functions could then be built using the lower-level building blocks.

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#44

Post by hhm »

jpatokal wrote: post #36
pr_fancycorn wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It uses raw lists as the data structure for everything (including code) and has enormous math/sci and presentation infrastructure. Every part of the system can easily talk to any other part of the system. Because of this you can just throw things together and get great results, where in other systems you might need to use external libraries or otherwise have to deal with high-ceremony architecture (I'm looking at you…

You can only "easily" "throw together" things if you have any clue about a) where to find things, and b) how you can make them fit together. The problem with Mathematica is that neither of these is easy. I mean, look at their literal Hello World example: GeoGraphics[Text[Style["Hello!", 150]], GeoRange -> World] In any other language, if I wanted to write some text on a graphic, I would find a routine to load an imag…

The simplest Hello World in Wolfram Language is just:

"Hello World"

or even:

Hello World

which are both quines. The only reason you need to know about Style and GeoGraphics is for making a prettier, but still small, Hello World example.

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#45

Post by rtkwe »

tragomaskhalos wrote: post #41
taliesinb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Time isn't the only investment required though is it? How much is even a single-seat licence?

300$ for just the software. Access to their data api's cost ~1k$ to start now with the desktop software.

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#46

Post by rtkwe »

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…

The language itself is not the exciting bit really, it's the data and processing APIs that it integrates with. They're taking care of a lot of information gathering for your through that integration which is pretty neat.

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#47

Post by cpach »

hhm wrote: post #44
jpatokal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can only "easily" "throw together" things if you have any clue about a) where to find things, and b) how you can make them fit together. The problem with Mathematica is that neither of these is easy. I mean, look at their literal Hello World example: GeoGraphics[Text[Style["Hello!", 150]], GeoRange -> World] In any other language, if I wanted to write some text on a graphic, I would find a routine to load an imag…

The simplest Hello World in Wolfram Language is just: "Hello World" or even: Hello World which are both quines. The only reason you need to know about Style and GeoGraphics is for making a prettier, but still small, Hello World example.

Sure, but to print ASCII text on the screen one could use any language. What were discussing here is why one might want to choose WL instead of other languages.

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#48

Post by notreadbyhumans »

taliesinb wrote: post #30
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/

I got sick of trying to get a price out of them for calls to their API. Not having a 'pricing' tab puts people off from the get-go and dealing with their sales people is a drag: all that technology and they can't even formulate a pricing calculator?!?

Re: Introducing Tweet-a-Program

#49

Post by th0ma5 »

mtrpcic wrote: post #21
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.

This still looks like a nightmare. No discoverability, no namespaces, no metadata management... these are all implemented in knowledge management systems, but this thing, whatever it is (not a language, not a knowledgebase, maybe a collection of pre-scripted demo applications?) has none of this.
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