5 ms·

Wolfram Launches a New Computable Document Format

42 points by coderdude 15y ago

jsavimbi 15y ago
Very interesting concept right there.
jjm 15y ago
See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2789062 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2789062
cmelbye 15y ago
Interesting, but requires a browser plug-in? No thanks.
- onedognight 15y ago
  It requires flash.
  - coderdude 15y ago
    He's an Objective-C programmer so he is most likely a user of Apple products, which means he likely owns an iPhone, which means he probably doesn't care too much for Flash. Though to be fair, the fact that it requires Flash isn't very attractive to me either.
  - nickmain 15y ago
    It requires a proprietary plugin that is 166MB (Mac).
    - josscrowcroft 15y ago
      And takes 550MB of hard drive space, unpacked.
  - cmelbye 15y ago
    Actually, it requires the "Wolfram CDF Player". http://cl.ly/8gCn http://cl.ly/8gCn
eric-hu 15y ago
My first reaction is that you'd basically be able to do what a webpage with javascript could do. On further thought, I realize that having tools like this lowers the learning curve for publishing interactive or formula-based documents. Hopefully this should lead to people producing documents that convey knowledge better. The main roadblock I see to this becoming more popular is how aggressive they are about keeping the format and viewer(s) proprietary.
- icebraining 15y ago
  They say the format is open, but the spec is nowhere to be seen. And they could have wrote an HTML+JS exporter for Mathematica instead of creating yet another format that requires yet another viewer.
peterbraden 15y ago
html + js is already a computable document format, and it runs everywhere, not in a proprietary viewer. Pretty sure this won't catch on.
- mey 15y ago
  html + js doesn't have a standard way to be shared outside a website. Additionally, the skills to produce an interactive cross system compatible diagram in html/js is outside most people's abilities. Additionally have you seen the horrible code that most wysiwyg editors produce? I think this will have a niche purpose, but I doubt it will succeed without some big player picking it up and running with it. (MS Office, Apple?) An additional thought, could probably take these documents (haven't looked at the spec) and generate an html/js representation easily enough.
  - mvanveen 15y ago
    Well, yes. You bring up good points. However, engineers like ourselves caught up in the goal of creating a One True System often run into the dilemma of pursuing the "MIT way" of doing things. I remember hearing that there was an MIT project that had many common goals with Tim Berner Lee's implementation of the World Wide Web. It never saw the light of day because the engineers were worried to death about how documents would appear if there was a connectivity problem. Lee sidestepped that whole mess by showing the good old 404 page. Premature optimization is the devil. The prevalence of html + js today is a testament to the fact that the ["worse is better"](http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html) design philosophy has its merits. I don't think this common document format will take off b/c of the same reasons that every other document format that isn't html + json has failed. I believe that if the browser wars have taught us anything, it's that iterative approach is the only thing which will move us closer to realizing some of your goals.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    >html + js doesn't have a standard way to be shared outside a website. Sure it does, just send an .html file. With the <script> and <style> tags and data: URIs to embed images, what more do you need? Hell, you can even distribute sound: http://softwareas.com/offline-sound-no-flash-no-file http://softwareas.com/offline-sound-no-flash-no-file
zirpu 15y ago
what about sagemath.org ? it uses python on the backend, and rst for the document format. and it's opensource.

42 points by coderdude 15y ago

jsavimbi 15y ago

Very interesting concept right there.

jjm 15y ago

See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2789062 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2789062

cmelbye 15y ago

Interesting, but requires a browser plug-in? No thanks.

onedognight 15y ago
It requires flash.
- coderdude 15y ago
  He's an Objective-C programmer so he is most likely a user of Apple products, which means he likely owns an iPhone, which means he probably doesn't care too much for Flash. Though to be fair, the fact that it requires Flash isn't very attractive to me either.
- nickmain 15y ago
  It requires a proprietary plugin that is 166MB (Mac).
  - josscrowcroft 15y ago
    And takes 550MB of hard drive space, unpacked.
- cmelbye 15y ago
  Actually, it requires the "Wolfram CDF Player". http://cl.ly/8gCn http://cl.ly/8gCn

eric-hu 15y ago

My first reaction is that you'd basically be able to do what a webpage with javascript could do. On further thought, I realize that having tools like this lowers the learning curve for publishing interactive or formula-based documents. Hopefully this should lead to people producing documents that convey knowledge better. The main roadblock I see to this becoming more popular is how aggressive they are about keeping the format and viewer(s) proprietary.

icebraining 15y ago
They say the format is open, but the spec is nowhere to be seen. And they could have wrote an HTML+JS exporter for Mathematica instead of creating yet another format that requires yet another viewer.

peterbraden 15y ago

html + js is already a computable document format, and it runs everywhere, not in a proprietary viewer. Pretty sure this won't catch on.

mey 15y ago
html + js doesn't have a standard way to be shared outside a website. Additionally, the skills to produce an interactive cross system compatible diagram in html/js is outside most people's abilities. Additionally have you seen the horrible code that most wysiwyg editors produce? I think this will have a niche purpose, but I doubt it will succeed without some big player picking it up and running with it. (MS Office, Apple?) An additional thought, could probably take these documents (haven't looked at the spec) and generate an html/js representation easily enough.
- mvanveen 15y ago
  Well, yes. You bring up good points. However, engineers like ourselves caught up in the goal of creating a One True System often run into the dilemma of pursuing the "MIT way" of doing things. I remember hearing that there was an MIT project that had many common goals with Tim Berner Lee's implementation of the World Wide Web. It never saw the light of day because the engineers were worried to death about how documents would appear if there was a connectivity problem. Lee sidestepped that whole mess by showing the good old 404 page. Premature optimization is the devil. The prevalence of html + js today is a testament to the fact that the ["worse is better"](http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html) design philosophy has its merits. I don't think this common document format will take off b/c of the same reasons that every other document format that isn't html + json has failed. I believe that if the browser wars have taught us anything, it's that iterative approach is the only thing which will move us closer to realizing some of your goals.
- icebraining 15y ago
  >html + js doesn't have a standard way to be shared outside a website. Sure it does, just send an .html file. With the <script> and <style> tags and data: URIs to embed images, what more do you need? Hell, you can even distribute sound: http://softwareas.com/offline-sound-no-flash-no-file http://softwareas.com/offline-sound-no-flash-no-file

zirpu 15y ago

what about sagemath.org ? it uses python on the backend, and rst for the document format. and it's opensource.