5 ms·

what does this do that couldn't be done with html5?

by exit 15y ago

Joakal 15y ago
From skimming it, it seems to be a shared file without need of a browser. It's like viewing an interactive PDF/Flash in a [CDF] player.
- jasondavies 15y ago
  You need a CDF player, which is essentially a browser for CDF documents.
romanows 15y ago
Sell more copies of Mathematica? There is this comparison chart, but it seems to confuse the document itself with the editing framework: http://www.wolfram.com/cdf/compare-cdf/how-cdf-compares.html http://www.wolfram.com/cdf/compare-cdf/how-cdf-compares.html
- derleth 15y ago
  > it seems to confuse the document itself with the editing framework Is it me, or is this a sign the format isn't going to be open in any meaningful sense?
antics 15y ago
HTML5 needs to be geared towards things that websites can do in general, where CDF appears to be geared towards a very specific set of tasks. In other words, possibly nothing, but your original question may or may not be the right question to ask.
tomelders 15y ago
My first thought exactly. HTML is the document format of the future. It seems almost everything can read HTML these days. Here we have an excellent, feature packed, well tested, well documented format that appears to offer everything CDF offers and more. All we need now are applications geared towards delivering the right tools to perform the necessary task. One of my side projects is a HTML word processor, and every time I look at a common Word processor feature, HTML offers a ton of free and easy to implement ways to make that feature better.
- taliesinb 15y ago
  Well, here's something that HTML5 can't do (at least easily). Dynamic @ Graphics @ Point @ ImageKeypoints @ CurrentImage[] What does this do? It takes a video stream from your webcam, extracts SURF keypoints ("salient" parts of the image, like corners), and plots them live. Note that all those functions are online at reference.wolfram.com. THAT'S A CDF! You have access to some heavy duty algorithms covering a vast number of fields. In fact its kind of surprising it fits in a few hundred megs. You're essentially getting the whole of Mathematica, for free.
  - iandanforth 15y ago
    That's cool, and compared to writing the code to do that manually, it's compact, but I'm having trouble imagining a worse syntax and naming scheme for achieving that task. Give me this: stream = OpenVideoStream(device) render1 = stream.surf() render2 = stream.sift() etc. display(outDevice, stream)
    - psykotic 15y ago
      The infix @ operator is just right-associative application, so a @ b @ c is synonymous with a[b[c]]. It plays the same syntactic role as $ does in Haskell for writing pipeline-style code.
  - derleth 15y ago
    And how many of those CDF files will still be readable in ten years?
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - taliesinb 15y ago
      So Wolfram Research has been around for 25 years, which is geological time for a software company. It has a (several) niches, and its technology is so far ahead of its competitors that I think the answer to your question is: all of them.
extension 15y ago
Be authored by regular non-programming shmoes, if you take Wolfram's word for it. It looks like they've discovered an interactivity model that is unusually simple while still being relatively powerful.
jerf 15y ago
This isn't a useful question. With Canvas, HTML5 can do "anything". With Turing Equivalence, any programming language can do "anything". The question isn't what the global space of possibilities is, it's what is easier or harder.

what does this do that couldn't be done with html5?

by exit 15y ago

what does this do that couldn't be done with html5?

From skimming it, it seems to be a shared file without need of a browser. It's like viewing an interactive PDF/Flash in a [CDF] player.

jasondavies 15y ago
You need a CDF player, which is essentially a browser for CDF documents.

romanows 15y ago

Sell more copies of Mathematica? There is this comparison chart, but it seems to confuse the document itself with the editing framework: http://www.wolfram.com/cdf/compare-cdf/how-cdf-compares.html http://www.wolfram.com/cdf/compare-cdf/how-cdf-compares.html

derleth 15y ago
> it seems to confuse the document itself with the editing framework Is it me, or is this a sign the format isn't going to be open in any meaningful sense?

antics 15y ago

HTML5 needs to be geared towards things that websites can do in general, where CDF appears to be geared towards a very specific set of tasks. In other words, possibly nothing, but your original question may or may not be the right question to ask.

tomelders 15y ago

My first thought exactly. HTML is the document format of the future. It seems almost everything can read HTML these days. Here we have an excellent, feature packed, well tested, well documented format that appears to offer everything CDF offers and more. All we need now are applications geared towards delivering the right tools to perform the necessary task. One of my side projects is a HTML word processor, and every time I look at a common Word processor feature, HTML offers a ton of free and easy to implement ways to make that feature better.

taliesinb 15y ago
Well, here's something that HTML5 can't do (at least easily). Dynamic @ Graphics @ Point @ ImageKeypoints @ CurrentImage[] What does this do? It takes a video stream from your webcam, extracts SURF keypoints ("salient" parts of the image, like corners), and plots them live. Note that all those functions are online at reference.wolfram.com. THAT'S A CDF! You have access to some heavy duty algorithms covering a vast number of fields. In fact its kind of surprising it fits in a few hundred megs. You're essentially getting the whole of Mathematica, for free.
- iandanforth 15y ago
  That's cool, and compared to writing the code to do that manually, it's compact, but I'm having trouble imagining a worse syntax and naming scheme for achieving that task. Give me this: stream = OpenVideoStream(device) render1 = stream.surf() render2 = stream.sift() etc. display(outDevice, stream)
  - psykotic 15y ago
    The infix @ operator is just right-associative application, so a @ b @ c is synonymous with a[b[c]]. It plays the same syntactic role as $ does in Haskell for writing pipeline-style code.
- derleth 15y ago
  And how many of those CDF files will still be readable in ten years?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - taliesinb 15y ago
    So Wolfram Research has been around for 25 years, which is geological time for a software company. It has a (several) niches, and its technology is so far ahead of its competitors that I think the answer to your question is: all of them.

extension 15y ago

Be authored by regular non-programming shmoes, if you take Wolfram's word for it. It looks like they've discovered an interactivity model that is unusually simple while still being relatively powerful.

jerf 15y ago

This isn't a useful question. With Canvas, HTML5 can do "anything". With Turing Equivalence, any programming language can do "anything". The question isn't what the global space of possibilities is, it's what is easier or harder.