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Wolfram Language

reference.wolfram.com

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Re: Wolfram Language

#91

Post by muyuu »

jordigh wrote: post #57
muyuu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A formal spec would be good enough too. But since he's specifying concrete output and graphics as part of the language, it's rather hard to specify binary-compatibility without a reference implementation. This is why there are no interpreted languages without a reference implementation that haven't failed miserably.

> This is why there are no interpreted languages without a reference implementation that haven't failed miserably. Matlab? I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "reference implementation", though.

Yeah Matlab is Matlab. You are locked in to them or try to use an attempt of compatible runtime.

Far from desirable and this is probably Wolfram's wet dream.

I doubt it will happen though.

This can be considered a commercial success, although it's pretty much a failure for the user, the student, academia, ... everybody else.

Re: Wolfram Language

#92

Post by lutusp »

staunch wrote: post #90
brudgers wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs built a business around charging students full retail and encouraging educational institutions to promote Apple computers to them. Freshman are encourage to take out loans to buy Apple products with a support life cycle that ends before they graduate. Any admiration for Mr. Jobs is based on something other than human community.

If you can't acknowledge Steve Jobs massive contributions to technological progress you're extremely confused about the history.

Wait, what? Jobs didn't create technology, he sold it to people (and did that very well). Before you reply, consider that I was there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer) and I knew Jobs personally. I watched how he operated. He was very good at what he did, but he was a promoter, not a creator, of technology -- technology created by others.

Re: Wolfram Language

#93

Post by oskarth »

sbrother wrote: post #42

It's an amazing language - basically lisp with the biggest standard library you've ever imagined, and nice (but slow) pattern matching. I used to use it all the time when I was doing one-off projects at school and for clients. But I don't see it taking off unless it goes FOSS - while I have a license and I'd love to keep using it I can't justify it to employers or clients who want to actually be able to run my code a…

I found that it mostly works great, but sometimes it gives really wrong results - without any warnings. My professor complained about various errors too (mostly in dynamical systems, some control theory, but the problems seemed to be of a general sort), so it wasn't just a 40 cm error. To me this suggest that the language has plenty of leaky abstractions. My feeling is that in languages like python or julia, if you do something wrong you are more likely to hear about - and understand - it.

Re: Wolfram Language

#94

Post by archagon »

muyuu wrote: post #5

Where's the source code? Is this something like CDF that can be only used from Wolfram's binary blob plugin/exes? If they don't release the sources for the compiler/interpreter it will be as popular as their Computable Document Format.

According to Wikipedia: "It also has a large amount of documentation, but it is not standardized. A partial standardization is planned, and an incomplete pre-release already exists."

Re: Wolfram Language

#95

Post by archagon »

To C&P myself from the previous thread, this looks awesome but I have a few questions:

1. Does the language work without an internet connection?

2. Is it free to use?

3. What happens if/when Wolfram the company goes out of business, or Wolfram himself retires?

4. Are all the disparate APIs and sources that the language uses determined by fiat, or can they be customized? What happens if/when the APIs/sources stop working?

5. Given that the language can do things like query your Facebook graph, it seems like there's a lot of API upkeep that the language requires. Is this done by Wolfram? How does this work when I'm running locally (if this is even possible)?

Re: Wolfram Language

#96

Post by seanmcdirmid »

rlx0x wrote: post #52

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P9HqHVPeik "Stephen™ Wolfram™'s Introduction to the Wolfram™ Language" That Wolfram™ Language and the Wolfram™ Cloud is going to change the world forever, the language is so great because its Wolfram™ Symbolic and since it all just runs in the Wolfram™ Cloud its really fast. You can put all your financial data in the Wolfram™ and do things. You know they worked 30 years on this, and it…

It is bad form to TM every mention of a word, you should only do the first one.

Anyways, invariably someone bashes Wolfram's ego whenever talking anything about Wolfram. This should be an internet law already.

Re: Wolfram Language

#97

Post by maxerickson »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #96
rlx0x wrote: post #52

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P9HqHVPeik "Stephen™ Wolfram™'s Introduction to the Wolfram™ Language" That Wolfram™ Language and the Wolfram™ Cloud is going to change the world forever, the language is so great because its Wolfram™ Symbolic and since it all just runs in the Wolfram™ Cloud its really fast. You can put all your financial data in the Wolfram™ and do things. You know they worked 30 years on this, and it…

It is bad form to TM every mention of a word, you should only do the first one. Anyways, invariably someone bashes Wolfram's ego whenever talking anything about Wolfram. This should be an internet law already.

Obviously, it should be called Wolfram's law.

Re: Wolfram Language

#98

Post by siglesias »

lutusp wrote: post #92
staunch wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't acknowledge Steve Jobs massive contributions to technological progress you're extremely confused about the history.

Wait, what? Jobs didn't create technology, he sold it to people (and did that very well). Before you reply, consider that I was there ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer ) and I knew Jobs personally. I watched how he operated. He was very good at what he did, but he was a promoter, not a creator, of technology -- technology created by others.

Creating a collaborative organization to design, engineer, and massively produce this stuff is absolutely nothing to scoff at. Process is essential to modern human enterprise--ask any of the hundreds of endlessly delayed Kickstarter projects that routinely fail to turn a prototype into something that can be shipped. If this were simple, there would be many Apples run by many "promoters." Instead there is only one.

Re: Wolfram Language

#99

Post by siglesias »

brudgers wrote: post #83
jakobe wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to shit on Steve Jobs in order to praise Steven Wolfram. Both are good businessmen that built great products and successful companies. And they had great respect for one another. And it's not like Wolfram is giving stuff away for free. Have you seen how much a Mathematica license costs? I loved using Mathematica at my university, but now I just can't afford a license anymore.

Steve Jobs built a business around charging students full retail and encouraging educational institutions to promote Apple computers to them. Freshman are encourage to take out loans to buy Apple products with a support life cycle that ends before they graduate. Any admiration for Mr. Jobs is based on something other than human community.

Apple offers educational discounts.

Re: Wolfram Language

#100

Post by asdkl234890 »

sbrother wrote: post #42

It's an amazing language - basically lisp with the biggest standard library you've ever imagined, and nice (but slow) pattern matching. I used to use it all the time when I was doing one-off projects at school and for clients. But I don't see it taking off unless it goes FOSS - while I have a license and I'd love to keep using it I can't justify it to employers or clients who want to actually be able to run my code a…

basically lisp with the biggest standard library you've ever imagined,

That's what I was thinking too. And I also think it could mostly be re-implement as open source, with say Python.

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