Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Forscape – A Language and Editor for Scientific Computation

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–35 of 35 posts

Re: Forscape – A Language and Editor for Scientific Computation

#31

Post by wiz21c »

cryptonector wrote: post #24
wiz21c wrote: post #17

Why a new language ? Honest question ? Couldn't it be done on top of say, Julia ? The typography thing is really cool, but having to code in yet another MatLab-clone is a bit annoying (or maybe I'm missing the point)

If you have a very complex equation then it will be a lot easier to read it and think about it if it's typeset correctly than if it's written in monospaced ASCII in Julia/Python/Java/C++/Rust/Haskell/Whatever. So then you have two options: - compile the typeset equation to code - hand-code the equation Forscape is a third option, perhaps more akin to a Jupyter-style notebook, where you write equations and text but yo…

I get that, sure. But the language forscape proposes will soon need to be a general one if one wants to do big projects with it.

(And I'd love to rewrite my simulation code with something like forscape, because then the math code would appear as such and not as a mubojumbo of numpy operations)...

Re: Forscape – A Language and Editor for Scientific Computation

#32

Post by cryptonector »

wiz21c wrote: post #31
cryptonector wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a very complex equation then it will be a lot easier to read it and think about it if it's typeset correctly than if it's written in monospaced ASCII in Julia/Python/Java/C++/Rust/Haskell/Whatever. So then you have two options: - compile the typeset equation to code - hand-code the equation Forscape is a third option, perhaps more akin to a Jupyter-style notebook, where you write equations and text but yo…

I get that, sure. But the language forscape proposes will soon need to be a general one if one wants to do big projects with it. (And I'd love to rewrite my simulation code with something like forscape, because then the math code would appear as such and not as a mubojumbo of numpy operations)...

Yes. I've a feeling that something like Forscape + something like Jupyter, and maybe something like LyX, might make the right combo.

Re: Forscape – A Language and Editor for Scientific Computation

#33

Post by etbebl »

cryptonector wrote: post #23
etbebl wrote: post #16

I may be missing the point, but I'm not sure there is really an audience for this...obviously nice math typography is important for publishing, but I doubt the set of people who are comfortable with advanced math but who see translating those operations into a traditional plain-text programming language as a barrier, but would be fine with a more math-like syntax, is very large.

It's almost certainly not a large set of people. It's probably no larger than the set of professors and grad students who could use it. But it does seem very useful to those people. Incidentally, that's basically the same people that TeX was meant for originally.

My point is, wouldn't most of these people be fine with coding in Python/Matlab/Fortan/whatever?

Not that it isn't a cool idea!

Re: Forscape – A Language and Editor for Scientific Computation

#34

Post by cryptonector »

etbebl wrote: post #33
cryptonector wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost certainly not a large set of people. It's probably no larger than the set of professors and grad students who could use it. But it does seem very useful to those people. Incidentally, that's basically the same people that TeX was meant for originally.

My point is, wouldn't most of these people be fine with coding in Python/Matlab/Fortan/whatever? Not that it isn't a cool idea!

My kid's writing a bunch of math in Tex and using it with tools like Desmos and Wolfram Alpha, and Lyx and what not, and then when it comes time to build simulations based on that math... he has to transpile it by hand to a programming language. This is terribly sub-optimal. Sure, one can build a transpiler to do it, but it'd be even neater if the authoring tool was more integrated with TeX math.

Re: Forscape – A Language and Editor for Scientific Computation

#35

Post by 7thaccount »

seanhunter wrote: post #28
7thaccount wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvoted. I have a love/hate relationship with Mathematica, but it is so far ahead of its time in a lot of ways. It's like Jupyter Notebooks dialed up by 100 and fully integrated with everything from linear algebra to calculus to graphics to graph theory to plotting to optimization and machine learning so on. I just find the functional like language (a term rewriting system) to be hard to grasp at times and it being a…

Yes. And Theodore Grey actually invented the notebook UX I believe for Mathematica around 2000-ish or maybe a bit before. Jupyter notebook came after that.

Yeah I understand Mathematica notebooks came first. I meant for my comment to allude to that, but when re-reading see I forgot to mention it. Thanks for adding context. I assumed Nathematica's notebook UI was even older than that.
Post reply on HN