6 ms·

How is this related to Flash? Mathematica is a powerful pattern based symbol manipulation language, Flash is a media creation software, which do you think reach

How is this related to Flash? Mathematica is a powerful pattern based symbol manipulation language, Flash is a media creation software, which do you think reaches more end users?

Nullabillity 7y ago
Both are proprietary trapware.
- joeberon 7y ago
  Mathematica is only trapware because it's so much better than anything else available
  - swiley 7y ago
    They used to say that about flash too.
    - Grue3 7y ago
      They were correct, too.
      - yarrel 7y ago
        Then along came HTML 5.
  - h91wka 7y ago
    MapleSoft Maple was on par with Mathematica, when I worked with both (ca 2010). Not sure about current state of affairs. Maple's embedded programming language is also quite a bit nicer.
    - h91wka 7y ago
      P.S. I actually remembered one area where Maple is still absolutely superior, that is plotting. It doesn't require to explicitly set argument range, it tries to find features of the function and adjusts the range to include them. AFAIK, Mathematica still doesn't do this.
    - qubex 7y ago
      I remember that back when I was in University there was a set of simultaneous ordinary differential equations that MAPLE was able to solve that Mathematica choked on. I remember reporting this to my tutor. He looked at me with a steely gaze and said “That is a very serious allegation to make, young man. Are you willing stand by it?”
      - h91wka 7y ago
        Maple's PDE solving abilities always made me want to yell "witchcraft!".
  - xvilka 7y ago
    Have you tried Sage Math[1]? They also have online version called CoCalc[2]. And it's built with Python, which is a way better scripting language. [1] http://www.sagemath.org/ http://www.sagemath.org/ [2] https://cocalc.com/ https://cocalc.com/
    - lonelappde 7y ago
      Sage is great, but it's no Mathematica.
      - qubex 7y ago
        This is what I always answer whenever somebody asks me why I stick to Mathematica rather than using some convoluted collection of SAGE/R/NumPy/SymPy.

How is this related to Flash? Mathematica is a powerful pattern based symbol manipulation language, Flash is a media creation software, which do you think reaches more end users?

Nullabillity 7y ago

Both are proprietary trapware.

joeberon 7y ago
Mathematica is only trapware because it's so much better than anything else available
- swiley 7y ago
  They used to say that about flash too.
  - Grue3 7y ago
    They were correct, too.
    - yarrel 7y ago
      Then along came HTML 5.
- h91wka 7y ago
  MapleSoft Maple was on par with Mathematica, when I worked with both (ca 2010). Not sure about current state of affairs. Maple's embedded programming language is also quite a bit nicer.
  - h91wka 7y ago
    P.S. I actually remembered one area where Maple is still absolutely superior, that is plotting. It doesn't require to explicitly set argument range, it tries to find features of the function and adjusts the range to include them. AFAIK, Mathematica still doesn't do this.
  - qubex 7y ago
    I remember that back when I was in University there was a set of simultaneous ordinary differential equations that MAPLE was able to solve that Mathematica choked on. I remember reporting this to my tutor. He looked at me with a steely gaze and said “That is a very serious allegation to make, young man. Are you willing stand by it?”
    - h91wka 7y ago
      Maple's PDE solving abilities always made me want to yell "witchcraft!".
- xvilka 7y ago
  Have you tried Sage Math[1]? They also have online version called CoCalc[2]. And it's built with Python, which is a way better scripting language. [1] http://www.sagemath.org/ http://www.sagemath.org/ [2] https://cocalc.com/ https://cocalc.com/
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Sage is great, but it's no Mathematica.
    - qubex 7y ago
      This is what I always answer whenever somebody asks me why I stick to Mathematica rather than using some convoluted collection of SAGE/R/NumPy/SymPy.