4 ms·

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 trade

by 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.

by qsort 3y ago

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.