3 ms·

It sounds like once you get the zen of Mathematica, it’s a truly exceptional tool to work with. It’s a shame that the only person it seems has get the zen of M

It sounds like once you get the zen of Mathematica, it’s a truly exceptional tool to work with. It’s a shame that the only person it seems has get the zen of Mathematica is Stephen Wolfram himself.

qsort 3y ago
I mean, it really is good software. It's by far the best CAS around and the "standard library" is extremely impressive. But like all software it involves tradeoffs. Fanatics of any technology or idea are never the easiest people to reason with.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  Agreed, but what are the tradeoffs for Mathematica?
  - jampekka 3y ago
    Mathematica has the best CAD capabilities for many/most tasks, but the language is rather horrible. E.g. code can not be commented, the program state is difficult to manage or even reset, it's very tied to the Mathematica "notebook". And it's quite idiosyncratic. I sometimes have to use it where Sympy fails, and every time it's almost constant WTF. And it's very proprietary and very expensive.
    - baq 3y ago
      Note it's free on the raspberry pi! https://www.wolfram.com/raspberry-pi/ https://www.wolfram.com/raspberry-pi/ If you have one collecting dust in a drawer, I'd heartily recommend checking it out.
      - lispm 3y ago
        check the license, though. https://www.wolfram.com/legal/agreements/wolfram-mathematica-raspberry-pi/ https://www.wolfram.com/legal/agreements/wolfram-mathematica...
    - sampo 3y ago
      > code can not be commented Mathematica has a C-like syntax for comments (* this is a comment *) but it doesn't have C++ style comments // This is a C++ comment
      - tromp 3y ago
        Actually those are Pascal-like comments. Pascal uses (* ... *) for arbitrary comments as well as { ... } for single line comments.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - jampekka 3y ago
        I stand corrected. For some reason I hadn't figured this out earlier even though I tried to find it.
    - Iwan-Zotow 3y ago
      > And it's very proprietary and very expensive get free kernel and wljs notebook
  - qsort 3y ago
    Comes as a big monolithical block that's much harder to work with if you have to develop bigger systems, language tooling is lacking even compared to something like Python that's already mediocre, in many aspects (data analysis/data engineering, machine learning, etc.) isn't as good as other options like Python or R. It's also not great as a general purpose language. It was never meant as such of course, but working in a real language where I can take stuff off a notebook and have it become a script has its advantages. Finally, I'm willing to use open-source software that's slightly worse if the difference isn't huge, and for many use cases the difference isn't huge. For some it is, and that's where Mathematica is great.
hacketthfk 3y ago
It is a bit Zen, but if you don't use it for a few months you forget everything because the syntax is so different.
contravariant 3y ago
In his case the zen of mathematica is that people will write a slick function for whatever he is interested in at the moment. Everyone else needs to deal with stuff like '#1 + #2 & @@@ # &/ @'.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

qsort 3y ago

I mean, it really is good software. It's by far the best CAS around and the "standard library" is extremely impressive. But like all software it involves tradeoffs. Fanatics of any technology or idea are never the easiest people to reason with.

wolverine876 3y ago
Agreed, but what are the tradeoffs for Mathematica?
- jampekka 3y ago
  Mathematica has the best CAD capabilities for many/most tasks, but the language is rather horrible. E.g. code can not be commented, the program state is difficult to manage or even reset, it's very tied to the Mathematica "notebook". And it's quite idiosyncratic. I sometimes have to use it where Sympy fails, and every time it's almost constant WTF. And it's very proprietary and very expensive.
  - baq 3y ago
    Note it's free on the raspberry pi! https://www.wolfram.com/raspberry-pi/ https://www.wolfram.com/raspberry-pi/ If you have one collecting dust in a drawer, I'd heartily recommend checking it out.
    - lispm 3y ago
      check the license, though. https://www.wolfram.com/legal/agreements/wolfram-mathematica-raspberry-pi/ https://www.wolfram.com/legal/agreements/wolfram-mathematica...
  - sampo 3y ago
    > code can not be commented Mathematica has a C-like syntax for comments (* this is a comment *) but it doesn't have C++ style comments // This is a C++ comment
    - tromp 3y ago
      Actually those are Pascal-like comments. Pascal uses (* ... *) for arbitrary comments as well as { ... } for single line comments.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - jampekka 3y ago
      I stand corrected. For some reason I hadn't figured this out earlier even though I tried to find it.
  - Iwan-Zotow 3y ago
    > And it's very proprietary and very expensive get free kernel and wljs notebook
- qsort 3y ago
  Comes as a big monolithical block that's much harder to work with if you have to develop bigger systems, language tooling is lacking even compared to something like Python that's already mediocre, in many aspects (data analysis/data engineering, machine learning, etc.) isn't as good as other options like Python or R. It's also not great as a general purpose language. It was never meant as such of course, but working in a real language where I can take stuff off a notebook and have it become a script has its advantages. Finally, I'm willing to use open-source software that's slightly worse if the difference isn't huge, and for many use cases the difference isn't huge. For some it is, and that's where Mathematica is great.

hacketthfk 3y ago

It is a bit Zen, but if you don't use it for a few months you forget everything because the syntax is so different.

contravariant 3y ago

In his case the zen of mathematica is that people will write a slick function for whatever he is interested in at the moment. Everyone else needs to deal with stuff like '#1 + #2 & @@@ # &/ @'.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]