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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)

#41

Post by hga »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #36
dmlorenzetti wrote: post #25

I wonder if Wolfram's 100-times-slower reference point was based on a very particular comparison. Suppose you benchmarked a numerical algorithm that dealt with a lot of matrix-vector operations. And suppose you compared, on the one hand, a C or Fortran implementation that used arrays and native machine finite-precision numbers, against a Lisp implementation that used lists and the sort of "exact" arithmetic described…

I could also see a matrix representation as lists of lists, and when you do anything you're always consing, and replacing elements of lists, and walking lists to get to elements. Compare that to a C-style 2D array of float or double, and Lisp looks horrible - plausibly 100x as bad, and worse as the size of the matrix increases. Of course, the problem with that is the Lisp data representation used, not Lisp itself.

Except Lisps that are intended for numerical work, like MACLISP on PDP-10s at the time, did have arrays. And as noted, MACLISP was around then faster than DEC's FORTRAN (an issue DEC fixed not too much later).

Lispers aren't stupid, which should be distinguished from how easy it is make a simple Lisp. Making a performant one takes effort on the scale of making any similar language implication good and fast.

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

#43

Post by mikerichards »

tfgg wrote: post #20
karcass wrote: post #13

"I wonder which will become self-aware first -- Wolfram Alpha, or Stephen Wolfram."

I once went to a talk by Wolfram to an audience of academics which he finished by saying that if he managed to find the theory of everything (which he seemed to think was a possibility), he probably wouldn't bother telling people, since theoretical physicists wouldn't understand it.

I wonder if he would have the balls to say that if Feynman was still around?

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

#44

Post by arca_vorago »

pjmlp wrote: post #28
arca_vorago wrote: post #22

I always just assumed it was mostly because of the desire to have a proprietary system he could generate revenue out of, instead of wading into GPL-esque territory that tends to go along with LISP. It's also one of the main reasons I have been using Octave and Python/Anaconda.

Most proper Lisps are all proprietary, what GPL scheme? None of the GPL Lisps compare to what is offered by the likes of Allegro Common Lisp and similar environments.

Didn't realize, the only LISP I regularly interact with is emacs lisp...

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

#45

Post by hga »

nswanberg wrote: post #39
jwmerrill wrote: post #30

What language features distinguish Mathematica from lisp? Are we just talking about the m-expression syntax, or are there more fundamental differences?

Here's what Wolfram wrote about Mathematica vs lisp in the first Mathematica book: http://reference.wolfram.com/legacy/v1/contents/4.2.7.pdf I don't know enough about lisp implementations to know if these differences still hold, but they still hold for Clojure and ClojureScript, for example. Though some people have done some experimentation like https://github.com/kovasb/combinator In the email under discussion thoug…

Thing is, you wouldn't develop a system like Mathematica without writing those sorts of things on top of your Lisp implementation. As MACSYMA, the first of these programs did, which he used prior to starting on SMP, even using a similar syntax per this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9798643

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

#46

Post by e40 »

adwf wrote: post #17

Wolfram has always seemed to me to have the biggest case of "Not Invented Here" syndrome I've ever heard of. I mean, not only did he have to make his new language, new search engine, etc. He even tried to make a new kind of science... If that's not extreme NIH, I don't know what is.

Related to this: I was at UC Berkeley in the early 80's (and did the port of Vaxima (the VAX version of Macsyma, running on Franz Lisp) to the Motorola 68000). There was definitely a rivalry between UCB and Caltech in the symbolic algebra area, and I think the "100x slower" was just an excuse to do it differently. I don't think he would have wanted to appear to be following anyone at UCB.

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

#48

Post by micro_cam »

Wolfram has said fellow student Rob Pike (who went on to co create go etc) convinced him to use C though i've never seen the reasons enumerated. So while he certainly comes off as arrogant and certainly reinvented a lot of stuff it isn't like he didn't listen to anyone...

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

#49

Post by mikerichards »

castis wrote: post #47
laichzeit0 wrote: post #32

Wolfram is extremely cocky for a bald man.

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".

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

#50

Post by coldtea »

adwf wrote: post #17

Wolfram has always seemed to me to have the biggest case of "Not Invented Here" syndrome I've ever heard of. I mean, not only did he have to make his new language, new search engine, etc. He even tried to make a new kind of science... If that's not extreme NIH, I don't know what is.

>If that's not extreme NIH, I don't know what is.

Worked well for him though...

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