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Genuine question - what is the use of all these versus something like R or Pandas that is actually usable in production as well. What is missing in R/Pandas th

Genuine question - what is the use of all these versus something like R or Pandas that is actually usable in production as well. What is missing in R/Pandas that makes people choose other pieces of software that does something very similar? Commercial versions of software probably has an edge in support/performance/libraries...Or (as with Simulink ) provides a very specific piece of functionality or integration. But what is the general use case? Even Mathworks has acknowledged the need to integrate with the huge R community out there - http://blog.wolfram.com/2013/05/22/why-would-a-mathematica-user-care-about-r/ http://blog.wolfram.com/2013/05/22/why-would-a-mathematica-u...

maxpupmax 11y ago
Well R and Pandas cover data analysis for the most part, while is is a computer algebra system? Seems like apples to oranges, really more comparable to sage/mathematica.
- sandGorgon 11y ago
  What about http://rsymbolic.org http://rsymbolic.org and obviously symPy ?
  - gaur 11y ago
    > symPy ? Uhm... it says right at the top of the linked website that sympy is used as the backend.
    - sandGorgon 11y ago
      True - but the question stands. Why use it in the Mathematica way/syntax than by itself. Remember I'm not qualifying the value of this project as a replacement to Mathematica. I'm asking who is the segment bthat would use this as opposed to going directly to symPy or R.
      - maxpupmax 11y ago
        I think you're right that Rymbolic + sympy are good comparisons as well.
rtpg 11y ago
Pandas doesn't really do symbolic computation... at least for me that is 90% of the utility of Mathematica (Maple on the other hand....)
- sgillen 11y ago
  Yeah I completely agree, I've yet to use anything as good as Mathematica for symbolic algebra/computation. Not quite sure what you're comment about Maple means though, would you mind expanding?
sifusam 11y ago
Barrier of entry would be what I would consider the primary use case for using all of these vs Pandas and R. If we look at Mathics only, it features a Mathematica compatible syntax which allows users familiar with the syntax to be up, running and productive with the tool much quicker. Mathics also provides a notebook, however others do as well as optional downloads. R has RStudio, and you can use Jupyter for Pandas.
- sandGorgon 11y ago
  Interesting. But then my question is how big is the user base that WANTS to use Mathematica but cannot AFFORD it? Because for a first time user just hunting for a symbolic math, the buy in might not be there.
  - vixen99 11y ago
    As the documentation says "Mathics will probably never have the power to compete with Mathematica® in industrial applications; yet, it might be an interesting alternative for educational purposes.". Moreover unlike Mathematica, anyone can examine the code, a definite plus for students.
    - nikofeyn 11y ago
      that doesn't make too much sense because many, many universities already hold site licenses for mathematica where it is either free or very cheap.
      - tamana 11y ago
        Most students in the world are not at universities
  - happycube 11y ago
    All Raspberry Pi's have Mathematica licenses, so there's one cheap way in.
dekhn 11y ago
The value of Mathematica is pretty straightforward. The language it provides is nothing special, but the scientific and mathematic routines, along with the symbolic support, put it in a class by itself- no open source package I've seen does root finding and other similar processes as effectively. The symbolic stuff is pretty cool too. Years ago I wrote "pyml" which made all the Mathematica features available in Python via a C language bridge. Whereas in scipy/numpy you can find the eigenvectors of a numeric array (a matrix of floats), in Mathematica, you can find the eigenvectors of a symbolic array (a matrix containing terms like x-1, y-5, etc).
- CullingTheHerd 11y ago
  And yet Mathematica is not nearly as effective as math when done by pencil, paper, and a trained mathematician. The value of maths is 1) it's "open-source", 2) it's free to use, 3) if you want to switch from one module to another (say, number theory to category theory) you are able to do so using the same tools (pencil, paper, and a trained mathematician), and so long as the two "modules" are inter-operable it flows so beautifully. If they are not, then you get to try to figure out ways to make them so. That, imho, is why I think all these open source packages keep popping up. Math itself is the ultimate "open source". And in doing math one is not limited to command line interface, left-to-right, line-by-line tools. Compare the experience of writing out a derivative in LaTeX vs on paper. LaTeX is an exercise in causing pain and frustration to oneself. On paper, it feels as though you're writing music.
  - vernie 11y ago
    Or I can use Mathematica to get my derivative, plug it into my numerical optimization routine and not have to think about it again. That's a much better feeling to me.
    - CullingTheHerd 11y ago
      Yes, I totally agree that Mathematica (other projects) can be the way to go when getting work done. No argument there.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
zbjornson 11y ago
In addition to what others have said, Mathematicas's graphics abilities make R feel like a TI-83 graphing calculator. (When was the last time you had to discuss JPEG as a "graphics device?") The documentation is also incredibly better - every symbol/function has examples that have already been run so you can scan for a result that looks like what you need and see how they did it, and then play with the example in the documentation notebook.
pklausler 11y ago
> Even Mathworks has acknowledged the need to integrate with the huge R community out there - You mean Mathematica, yes?
okyup 11y ago
Ease of use. Python is hard to learn to use for math. It requires a strong programming and math background. Mathematica's syntax is more natural and it doesn't require learning numerous different packages and figuring out how to stitch them together - it just works. Graphing is more convenient, too.
oneloop 11y ago
Symbolic manipulation. That's the only reason Mathematica is used in academia. If you're in the academia and want to do numeric computations you would use something like R or Matlab.
- tagrun 11y ago
  That, and Mathematica's NDSolve is also quite hard to beat.

maxpupmax 11y ago

Well R and Pandas cover data analysis for the most part, while is is a computer algebra system? Seems like apples to oranges, really more comparable to sage/mathematica.

sandGorgon 11y ago
What about http://rsymbolic.org http://rsymbolic.org and obviously symPy ?
- gaur 11y ago
  > symPy ? Uhm... it says right at the top of the linked website that sympy is used as the backend.
  - sandGorgon 11y ago
    True - but the question stands. Why use it in the Mathematica way/syntax than by itself. Remember I'm not qualifying the value of this project as a replacement to Mathematica. I'm asking who is the segment bthat would use this as opposed to going directly to symPy or R.
    - maxpupmax 11y ago
      I think you're right that Rymbolic + sympy are good comparisons as well.

rtpg 11y ago

Pandas doesn't really do symbolic computation... at least for me that is 90% of the utility of Mathematica (Maple on the other hand....)

sgillen 11y ago
Yeah I completely agree, I've yet to use anything as good as Mathematica for symbolic algebra/computation. Not quite sure what you're comment about Maple means though, would you mind expanding?

sifusam 11y ago

Barrier of entry would be what I would consider the primary use case for using all of these vs Pandas and R. If we look at Mathics only, it features a Mathematica compatible syntax which allows users familiar with the syntax to be up, running and productive with the tool much quicker. Mathics also provides a notebook, however others do as well as optional downloads. R has RStudio, and you can use Jupyter for Pandas.

sandGorgon 11y ago
Interesting. But then my question is how big is the user base that WANTS to use Mathematica but cannot AFFORD it? Because for a first time user just hunting for a symbolic math, the buy in might not be there.
- vixen99 11y ago
  As the documentation says "Mathics will probably never have the power to compete with Mathematica® in industrial applications; yet, it might be an interesting alternative for educational purposes.". Moreover unlike Mathematica, anyone can examine the code, a definite plus for students.
  - nikofeyn 11y ago
    that doesn't make too much sense because many, many universities already hold site licenses for mathematica where it is either free or very cheap.
    - tamana 11y ago
      Most students in the world are not at universities
- happycube 11y ago
  All Raspberry Pi's have Mathematica licenses, so there's one cheap way in.

dekhn 11y ago

The value of Mathematica is pretty straightforward. The language it provides is nothing special, but the scientific and mathematic routines, along with the symbolic support, put it in a class by itself- no open source package I've seen does root finding and other similar processes as effectively. The symbolic stuff is pretty cool too. Years ago I wrote "pyml" which made all the Mathematica features available in Python via a C language bridge. Whereas in scipy/numpy you can find the eigenvectors of a numeric array (a matrix of floats), in Mathematica, you can find the eigenvectors of a symbolic array (a matrix containing terms like x-1, y-5, etc).

CullingTheHerd 11y ago
And yet Mathematica is not nearly as effective as math when done by pencil, paper, and a trained mathematician. The value of maths is 1) it's "open-source", 2) it's free to use, 3) if you want to switch from one module to another (say, number theory to category theory) you are able to do so using the same tools (pencil, paper, and a trained mathematician), and so long as the two "modules" are inter-operable it flows so beautifully. If they are not, then you get to try to figure out ways to make them so. That, imho, is why I think all these open source packages keep popping up. Math itself is the ultimate "open source". And in doing math one is not limited to command line interface, left-to-right, line-by-line tools. Compare the experience of writing out a derivative in LaTeX vs on paper. LaTeX is an exercise in causing pain and frustration to oneself. On paper, it feels as though you're writing music.
- vernie 11y ago
  Or I can use Mathematica to get my derivative, plug it into my numerical optimization routine and not have to think about it again. That's a much better feeling to me.
  - CullingTheHerd 11y ago
    Yes, I totally agree that Mathematica (other projects) can be the way to go when getting work done. No argument there.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

zbjornson 11y ago

In addition to what others have said, Mathematicas's graphics abilities make R feel like a TI-83 graphing calculator. (When was the last time you had to discuss JPEG as a "graphics device?") The documentation is also incredibly better - every symbol/function has examples that have already been run so you can scan for a result that looks like what you need and see how they did it, and then play with the example in the documentation notebook.

pklausler 11y ago

> Even Mathworks has acknowledged the need to integrate with the huge R community out there - You mean Mathematica, yes?

okyup 11y ago

Ease of use. Python is hard to learn to use for math. It requires a strong programming and math background. Mathematica's syntax is more natural and it doesn't require learning numerous different packages and figuring out how to stitch them together - it just works. Graphing is more convenient, too.

oneloop 11y ago

Symbolic manipulation. That's the only reason Mathematica is used in academia. If you're in the academia and want to do numeric computations you would use something like R or Matlab.

tagrun 11y ago
That, and Mathematica's NDSolve is also quite hard to beat.