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Why Wolfram Mathematica did not use Lisp (2002)

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Re: Why Wolfram Mathematica did not use Lisp (2002)

#121

Post by kuschku »

cwyers wrote: post #102
freeduck wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or Linux which as an OS far surpasses e.g. windows. It runs on any hardware you can imagine from satellites to hand-held devices and the majority of the super-computers in the world.

> Or Linux which as an OS far surpasses e.g. windows. Linux is a lot cheaper than Windows. More importantly, it's a lot LOT cheaper than most proprietary Unices. And it's freely modifiable. If that makes it "better" for you, have at, I am not going to quibble. If you are talking about Linux as a desktop, rather than server, operating system... there are reasons that Windows users outnumber Linux users on the desktop…

Well, Linux is used every day as operating system by millions of end users – on mobile devices.

And Linux and the BSDs are getting a lot more love on consoles, too – look at the SteamBox.

With 16% of all current generation games being able to run on linux, often (like in the case of the new Batman game) even better than on Windows, it is getting more and more towards equality.

Re: Why Wolfram Mathematica did not use Lisp (2002)

#122

Post by cwyers »

kuschku wrote: post #120
cwyers wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or Linux which as an OS far surpasses e.g. windows. Linux is a lot cheaper than Windows. More importantly, it's a lot LOT cheaper than most proprietary Unices. And it's freely modifiable. If that makes it "better" for you, have at, I am not going to quibble. If you are talking about Linux as a desktop, rather than server, operating system... there are reasons that Windows users outnumber Linux users on the desktop…

Well, Linux is used every day as operating system by millions of end users – on mobile devices. And Linux and the BSDs are getting a lot more love on consoles, too – look at the SteamBox. With 16% of all current generation games being able to run on linux, often (like in the case of the new Batman game) even running better than on Windows (or expected to do so), it is getting more and more towards equality.

> With 16% of all current generation games being able to run on linux, often (like in the case of the new Batman game) even better than on Windows

You are literally making stuff up. The OSX/Linux port of Arkham Knight doesn't even have a release date yet.

Re: Why Wolfram Mathematica did not use Lisp (2002)

#123

Post by kuschku »

cwyers wrote: post #122
kuschku wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Linux is used every day as operating system by millions of end users – on mobile devices. And Linux and the BSDs are getting a lot more love on consoles, too – look at the SteamBox. With 16% of all current generation games being able to run on linux, often (like in the case of the new Batman game) even running better than on Windows (or expected to do so), it is getting more and more towards equality.

> With 16% of all current generation games being able to run on linux, often (like in the case of the new Batman game) even better than on Windows You are literally making stuff up. The OSX/Linux port of Arkham Knight doesn't even have a release date yet.

And the studio porting it has NEVER made a single game that was bad – while the windows port, made by a different studio... well, you’ve seen it.

And about the 16%: Look at the Steam games catalogue.

Re: Why Wolfram Mathematica did not use Lisp (2002)

#124

Post by DonHopkins »

Maybe KMP should have recycled Jerry Pournelle's account for a certain bright 19-year-old, instead... ;)

http://www.stormtiger.org/bob/humor/pournell/story.html

"Personally, I'd just turn off his account. It's not like it's the first time, and he not only flaunts his use of our machines but stabs us in the back with grumblings about why he doesn't like this or that program of ours when he gets a chance. (Am thinking particularly of an article he wrote which condemned Lisp for reasons amounting to little more than his ignorance, but which cited Teach-Lisp in a not-friendly light... The man has learned nothing from his presence on MC and sets a bad example of what people might potentially accomplish there. I'd rather recycle his account for some bright 12-yr-old...)" -KMP

Re: Why Wolfram Mathematica did not use Lisp (2002)

#125

Post by orbifold »

akssri wrote: post #116
tzs wrote: post #67

I think the author is misremembering Wolfram's claims. I recall attending the first open demo of SMP, where Wolfram (and I think co-author Chris Cole) were demoing it in a large Caltech lecture hall. Here's what I recall. They had tried to use Macsyma for their physics work, and found experimentally that it was too slow on what they considered to be "medium" problems, and could not handle "large" problems at all. The…

What exactly were these 'problems' ?

In high energy physics people compute scattering amplitudes, the goal is to estimate how many events of a particular kind a detector in a collider experiment will see at various energies. The predominant tool for doing that is to calculate contributions from so called Feynman diagrams, each diagram is a graphical representation of some fairly complicated integral, the integrant is some rational function of the particle momenta. The nominator has to be simplified by manipulating spinor identities and in the case of for example QCD one has to work out color factors. Just a few years before people were computing 1000s of those diagrams by hand for Quantum electro dynamics, often while cross checking each others results. For non-abelian Yang-Mills Theory (t'Hooft Veltman had published their landmark paper in 1972) this is more or less infeasible beyond first order.

The number of diagrams that have to be evaluated quickly explodes beyond the first order and in the case of QCD already at two loops would require herculean efforts to do by hand. In fact Schoonschip was one of the first computer algebra systems and developed for just this reason.

Beyond that areas like Supersymmetry and certain parts of General Relativity would be very painful to work in, if everything had to be done by hand.

Re: Why Wolfram Mathematica did not use Lisp (2002)

#126

Post by DonHopkins »

mikerichards wrote: post #49
castis wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bite. What does hair (or lack thereof) have to do with anything?

For some reason, that's actually a pretty funny troll. He should've added on to it though. "If he's so smart, he would've found the cure for baldness already".

Parts of him are actually quite hairy. But fortunately, just like his theory of everything, he's doesn't bother telling people, since doctors wouldn't understand it. [1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9798776

Re: Why Wolfram Mathematica did not use Lisp (2002)

#127

Post by hga »

DonHopkins wrote: post #124

Maybe KMP should have recycled Jerry Pournelle's account for a certain bright 19-year-old, instead... ;) http://www.stormtiger.org/bob/humor/pournell/story.html "Personally, I'd just turn off his account. It's not like it's the first time, and he not only flaunts his use of our machines but stabs us in the back with grumblings about why he doesn't like this or that program of ours when he gets a chance. (Am thinking…

He'd already used Macsyma on MIT-MC, had written his own SMP, left Caltech due to IP issues WRT SMP, and was in 1985 working on cellular automata at the IAS while no doubt arranging for SMP Mark II, AKA Mathematica which he started the next year....

Interestingly, Pournelle was the kind of guy who could exercise Macsyma, or at least his first computer program solved a system of 60 or so linear equations on a IBM 650, an "affordable" machine back in the '50s that used a magnetic drum for its main memory.

Re: Why Wolfram Mathematica did not use Lisp (2002)

#128

Post by DonHopkins »

hga wrote: post #127
DonHopkins wrote: post #124

Maybe KMP should have recycled Jerry Pournelle's account for a certain bright 19-year-old, instead... ;) http://www.stormtiger.org/bob/humor/pournell/story.html "Personally, I'd just turn off his account. It's not like it's the first time, and he not only flaunts his use of our machines but stabs us in the back with grumblings about why he doesn't like this or that program of ours when he gets a chance. (Am thinking…

He'd already used Macsyma on MIT-MC, had written his own SMP, left Caltech due to IP issues WRT SMP, and was in 1985 working on cellular automata at the IAS while no doubt arranging for SMP Mark II, AKA Mathematica which he started the next year.... Interestingly, Pournelle was the kind of guy who could exercise Macsyma, or at least his first computer program solved a system of 60 or so linear equations on a IBM 650,…

Yeah, with turists like Jerry Pournelle, who needs Stephen Wolfram?

"Mr. Pournelle bids me tell you that if you intended to annoy him, you have succeeded, and that his next column in BYTE will have a lot to say about the ARPANET...."

"One thing that is known about ARPA: you can be heaved off it for supporting the policies of the Department of Defense. Of course that was intended to anger me. If you have an ARPA account, please tell CSTACY that he was successful; now let us see if my Pentagon friends can upset him. Or perhaps some reporter friends. Or both., Or even the House Armed Services Committee."

Re: Why Wolfram Mathematica did not use Lisp (2002)

#129

Post by tzs »

akssri wrote: post #116
tzs wrote: post #67

I think the author is misremembering Wolfram's claims. I recall attending the first open demo of SMP, where Wolfram (and I think co-author Chris Cole) were demoing it in a large Caltech lecture hall. Here's what I recall. They had tried to use Macsyma for their physics work, and found experimentally that it was too slow on what they considered to be "medium" problems, and could not handle "large" problems at all. The…

What exactly were these 'problems' ?

My memory is pretty good, but not good enough to recall that level of detail from a demonstration I attended ~35 years ago!

Wolfram's doctorate was in high energy physics, so they were probably things in those areas.

Re: Why Wolfram Mathematica did not use Lisp (2002)

#130

Post by hga »

DonHopkins wrote: post #128
hga wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He'd already used Macsyma on MIT-MC, had written his own SMP, left Caltech due to IP issues WRT SMP, and was in 1985 working on cellular automata at the IAS while no doubt arranging for SMP Mark II, AKA Mathematica which he started the next year.... Interestingly, Pournelle was the kind of guy who could exercise Macsyma, or at least his first computer program solved a system of 60 or so linear equations on a IBM 650,…

Yeah, with turists like Jerry Pournelle, who needs Stephen Wolfram? "Mr. Pournelle bids me tell you that if you intended to annoy him, you have succeeded, and that his next column in BYTE will have a lot to say about the ARPANET...." "One thing that is known about ARPA: you can be heaved off it for supporting the policies of the Department of Defense. Of course that was intended to anger me. If you have an ARPA accou…

Chris was really, really stupid to purge JERRYP for badthink; if Jerry had been intent on revenge vs. reform, he could have done a lot of damage to certain parties, although not of course the Internet itself, which that year was starting to be substantially extended by the NSFNet.
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