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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)

#71

Post by thanatropism »

cwyers wrote: post #69
thanatropism wrote: post #29

Mathematica is an interesting case study for a general-purpose software package that happens to be more feature-full and functional -- not just "more convenient" or "better UX" -- than any open-source counterparts. I tend to use some proprietary scientific software, but a lot of it is because academia already has already invested in codebases for, say, Stata, GAMS, Matlab and so on. But Matlab is two steps removed fr…

> Mathematica is an interesting case study for a general-purpose software package that happens to be more feature-full and functional -- not just "more convenient" or "better UX" -- than any open-source counterparts. Isn't the world littered with such examples? Office is more feature-full than OpenOffice, Photoshop is more feature-full than GIMP, Illustrator is more feature-full than Inkscape, InDesign is more featur…

OpenOffice is "good enough"; where Word isn't an option, it does the job. GIMP isn't even trying; it's not in the same market as Photoshop or casual image editing, which is well served by web apps these days. (One wonders what it is for; padding developer CVs, possibly) Finally, nonlinear video editing hardly qualifies for "general purpose" -- and is there anything worth mentioning as for open source offerings?

Mathematica, on the other hand, is squarely in the terrain usually covered by open source.

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

#72

Post by cwyers »

thanatropism wrote: post #71
cwyers wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mathematica is an interesting case study for a general-purpose software package that happens to be more feature-full and functional -- not just "more convenient" or "better UX" -- than any open-source counterparts. Isn't the world littered with such examples? Office is more feature-full than OpenOffice, Photoshop is more feature-full than GIMP, Illustrator is more feature-full than Inkscape, InDesign is more featur…

OpenOffice is "good enough"; where Word isn't an option, it does the job. GIMP isn't even trying; it's not in the same market as Photoshop or casual image editing, which is well served by web apps these days. (One wonders what it is for; padding developer CVs, possibly) Finally, nonlinear video editing hardly qualifies for "general purpose" -- and is there anything worth mentioning as for open source offerings? Mathe…

If nonlinear video editing isn't general purpose, then I don't see how Mathematica is.

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

#73

Post by pvg »

Wolfram himself has a far more detailed write-up on the development of SMP and Mathematica.

http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2013/06/there-was-a-time-befo...

It might be biased or self-serving but it's more interesting than an offhand USENET recollection about a brilliant and arrogant young man.

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

#74

Post by ska »

DonHopkins wrote: post #65
ska wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never met him but have read some of his stuff over the years and talked to a few people who have (met him). He strikes me a clearly very smart, just not as smart as he thinks he is (not uncommon, but more rare at his level of talent I think). An aside: For what it's worth, I find the "genius" label problematic in general, not just for him. I think it's a concept that probably has useful application, but to His a…

I heard that when he was writing and editing ANKOS, he rejected a picture of a panther that was to be used to illustrate reaction-diffusion textures in nature, because he didn't like the expression on its face. ;)

Perhaps the best property of ANKOS is that it is a clear demonstration of what sort of trouble you can get into when a book doesn't have an (effective) editor.

I'm certain there is a small, interesting, well written book hiding in all that verbiage somewhere, but it's well hidden.

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

#76

Post by et2o »

thanatropism wrote: post #29

Mathematica is an interesting case study for a general-purpose software package that happens to be more feature-full and functional -- not just "more convenient" or "better UX" -- than any open-source counterparts. I tend to use some proprietary scientific software, but a lot of it is because academia already has already invested in codebases for, say, Stata, GAMS, Matlab and so on. But Matlab is two steps removed fr…

How is Mathematica generally more "feature-full"? What are you comparing it to?

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

#77

Post by _ph_ »

waynecochran wrote: post #70

If he had used Lisp how would he have ported it to so many machines? I programmed in Common Lisp quite a bit in grad school and I liked it, but it was always on a specific platform. I would use Lisp even now, but I'll often use C/C++ just because I know I can get it to work most everywhere.

SBCL runs pretty much everywhere: http://sbcl.org/platform-table.html

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

#78

Post by the_af »

thanatropism wrote: post #71
cwyers wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mathematica is an interesting case study for a general-purpose software package that happens to be more feature-full and functional -- not just "more convenient" or "better UX" -- than any open-source counterparts. Isn't the world littered with such examples? Office is more feature-full than OpenOffice, Photoshop is more feature-full than GIMP, Illustrator is more feature-full than Inkscape, InDesign is more featur…

OpenOffice is "good enough"; where Word isn't an option, it does the job. GIMP isn't even trying; it's not in the same market as Photoshop or casual image editing, which is well served by web apps these days. (One wonders what it is for; padding developer CVs, possibly) Finally, nonlinear video editing hardly qualifies for "general purpose" -- and is there anything worth mentioning as for open source offerings? Mathe…

Did I misunderstand or are you arguing GIMP is for "padding developer CVs"? That's a... fringe opinion, to say the least.

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

#79

Post by chrisbennet »

"During the dinner discussion leading up to this definition the foreword to one of the Mathematica books was mentioned, where Stephen Wolfram (in third person) wrote "Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica and is widely regarded as the most important innovator in scientific and technical computing today." In honour of this self-assessment I suggest we call the unit of ego the Wolfram." - "Monumental egos" blog post by Anders Sandberg

http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2009/04/monumental_egos....

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

#80

Post by mseebach »

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.

Well, when "not invented here" is accompanied by "not invented anywhere else, either", we usually just call it "invented".
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