4 ms·

Some notable features: Call outs to R code http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/new-in-9/built-in-integration-with-r/ http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/new-in-9

Some notable features: Call outs to R code http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/new-in-9/built-in-integration-with-r/ http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/new-in-9/built-in-integra... Social network analysis http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/new-in-9/social-network-analysis/ http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/new-in-9/social-network-a... Computation bar http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/new-in-9/next-computation-suggestions-bar/ http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/new-in-9/next-computation... Sigh. I dream of Mathematica being open source.

ivanb 14y ago
Sigh. I dream of Mathematica being open source. Take a look at Maxima then. It is a good system too but not even close in quality, features, etc.I blame its open source nature for this.
- adityab 14y ago
  > I blame its open source nature for this. Why is it's open source nature to blame here? Can you elaborate? Is it the product vs. project argument?
  - ivanb 14y ago
    Yes, this is a product vs project argument. Products generally have a more intensive and focused effort. On the other hand the scientists which are the main users of Maxima may not be as willing to do or not be as good in development as developers themselves. In my not so humble opinion and only in my opinion open sourcing of Maxima (or Macsyma) put it in the wrong hands. Not to blame the actual developers of Maxima. Maxima is a very good project by itself just not as good as its commercial competitors.
    - dbaupp 14y ago
      Presumably the choice was to either open-source Maxima or stop development entirely and let it fall into obscurity. And anyway, having a(nother) open-source symbolic mathematical program is better than not having it, even if it is substandard compared to the commercial offerings.
    - jedbrown 14y ago
      Maxima's user base has long been minuscule compared to Mathematica and Maple. There are many factors that went into Maxima's present state, few of which I think are directly attributable to it being open source. There are plenty of open source projects that are more than competitive with their commercial counterparts, e.g., version control, Linux in the data center, R, many MPI-based HPC libraries.
- brcrth 14y ago
  SAGE is pretty cool too! http://www.sagemath.org/ http://www.sagemath.org/
ksss 14y ago
I would dream of Mathematica being something used as much as MS Excel. Available in any environment and a little bit easier to use for Excel users.
- bloaf 14y ago
  I think Mathematica could make a killer excel add-in.
  - alok-g 14y ago
    Genuinely asking: Why? What use-cases or advantages do you have in mind?
  - rplacd 14y ago
    ExcelLink exists, but it inverses the flow of control - it spawns an inferior Excel.
    - alok-g 14y ago
      Just found MathematicaLink [1] while researching ExcelLink that allows access to Mathematica from Excel. [1] http://www.wolfram.com/products/applications/excel_link/features/mathematicalink.html http://www.wolfram.com/products/applications/excel_link/feat...
- alok-g 14y ago
  Can you provide examples for the ideal case for you? What would you like to see in Mathematica to make it easier? As a heavy user of both, my experience is that Mathematica is more difficult initially when writing your code, but is ultimately easier than Excel because the thing you would be doing in Mathematica would be very hard to do in Excel (it is both a technical as well as maintenance nightmare).
27182818284 14y ago
>Sigh. I dream of Mathematica being open source. That's what Google's Brin was working on when he interned there.
- jkn 14y ago
  Sergey Brin was only working on open sourcing the "pure language" part of it [1]. I share the dream of an open source Mathematica. It's so rich, elegant and powerful, using it would be a no-brainer. But in its present state? Nope. I've been bitten too many times by the proprietary nature of Matlab, in which I have invested a lot of work, to repeat the mistake. More specifically and from the top of my mind, I found that proprietary means: - I cannot run my code on my personal PC - some people I'm collaborating with cannot use my work - when I move to a different job, there is a good chance I cannot reuse my code - even when my new workstation (or my colleague's PC) does have the software installed, there is a good chance the version is incompatible with my code or the license doesn't include some toolbox I'm using - some work I want to make freely available is of no use to someone who cannot afford the software Notably absent from the list is the notion that I cannot check what is happening in the proprietary code. That is because the Matlab functions I needed to check were written in Matlab and perfectly readable. I'm sure the issue is real though, and I would be concerned if a new kind of science developed that produced results through opaque processes in closed source proprietary software. [1] http://www.bestofama.com/Stephen_Wolfram/qisot http://www.bestofama.com/Stephen_Wolfram/qisot
  - rplacd 14y ago
    > a new kind of science developed that produced results through opaque processes in closed source proprietary software. The amount of restraint you've just shown in describing NKS is superhuman.
  - taliesinb 14y ago
    Because most of Mathematica is written in Mathematica, you can actually introspect large parts of the codebase (by using DownValues). Try e.g.: DownValues[GraphPlot] Sometimes various symbols are 'ReadProtected', which prevents you from seeing their internal definition. But guess what? You can just Unprotect them and remove that attribute. And even introduce new definitions to monkey-patch the language! Only a smallish subset of the language is written in C (for speed). Edit: It's also kinda fun to use Names["*`*"] to see all the defined symbols in a fresh kernel -- there's a lot of hidden stuff there. Try Names["Internal`*"] Names["Developer`*"] to see some stuff the developers kept to themselves :)
JulianMorrison 14y ago
http://julialang.org/ http://julialang.org/ has potential.
onan_barbarian 14y ago
> Sigh. I dream of Mathematica being open source. I dream of a world where people don't compulsively fantasize that for any given piece of software, it should be supplanted by some other piece of software whose main differentiating feature is that it's a FOSS clone.
- zackzackzack 14y ago
  I have no problem shelling out the money for the (student) license. I've worked at Wolfram and I could probably swing a free license anyway. There are already a variety of clones out there that can do some of what Mathematica already does. d3 and javascript can replicate some of the manipulate work. I mean, look at session: https://github.com/kovasb/session https://github.com/kovasb/session Mathematica being open source would mean that I could look at the source though and see what the hell is going on inside. I'd love to see how they are doing call outs to R and trace through all the interactions between the kernel, the user interface, and W|A. If it were open source, I could see the implementations of all the Mathematical algorithms and look at all the neat optimizations and new results they have found during their work. I care about the "math in Mathematica and am interested in seeing how it all works.
  - lshifr 14y ago
    All source code of RLink is available. The Java part is LGPL, and the Mathematica part is not, but is located at /SystemFiles/Links/RLink/RLink.m

ivanb 14y ago

Sigh. I dream of Mathematica being open source. Take a look at Maxima then. It is a good system too but not even close in quality, features, etc.I blame its open source nature for this.

adityab 14y ago
> I blame its open source nature for this. Why is it's open source nature to blame here? Can you elaborate? Is it the product vs. project argument?
- ivanb 14y ago
  Yes, this is a product vs project argument. Products generally have a more intensive and focused effort. On the other hand the scientists which are the main users of Maxima may not be as willing to do or not be as good in development as developers themselves. In my not so humble opinion and only in my opinion open sourcing of Maxima (or Macsyma) put it in the wrong hands. Not to blame the actual developers of Maxima. Maxima is a very good project by itself just not as good as its commercial competitors.
  - dbaupp 14y ago
    Presumably the choice was to either open-source Maxima or stop development entirely and let it fall into obscurity. And anyway, having a(nother) open-source symbolic mathematical program is better than not having it, even if it is substandard compared to the commercial offerings.
  - jedbrown 14y ago
    Maxima's user base has long been minuscule compared to Mathematica and Maple. There are many factors that went into Maxima's present state, few of which I think are directly attributable to it being open source. There are plenty of open source projects that are more than competitive with their commercial counterparts, e.g., version control, Linux in the data center, R, many MPI-based HPC libraries.
brcrth 14y ago
SAGE is pretty cool too! http://www.sagemath.org/ http://www.sagemath.org/

ksss 14y ago

I would dream of Mathematica being something used as much as MS Excel. Available in any environment and a little bit easier to use for Excel users.

bloaf 14y ago
I think Mathematica could make a killer excel add-in.
- alok-g 14y ago
  Genuinely asking: Why? What use-cases or advantages do you have in mind?
- rplacd 14y ago
  ExcelLink exists, but it inverses the flow of control - it spawns an inferior Excel.
  - alok-g 14y ago
    Just found MathematicaLink [1] while researching ExcelLink that allows access to Mathematica from Excel. [1] http://www.wolfram.com/products/applications/excel_link/features/mathematicalink.html http://www.wolfram.com/products/applications/excel_link/feat...
alok-g 14y ago
Can you provide examples for the ideal case for you? What would you like to see in Mathematica to make it easier? As a heavy user of both, my experience is that Mathematica is more difficult initially when writing your code, but is ultimately easier than Excel because the thing you would be doing in Mathematica would be very hard to do in Excel (it is both a technical as well as maintenance nightmare).

27182818284 14y ago

>Sigh. I dream of Mathematica being open source. That's what Google's Brin was working on when he interned there.

jkn 14y ago
Sergey Brin was only working on open sourcing the "pure language" part of it [1]. I share the dream of an open source Mathematica. It's so rich, elegant and powerful, using it would be a no-brainer. But in its present state? Nope. I've been bitten too many times by the proprietary nature of Matlab, in which I have invested a lot of work, to repeat the mistake. More specifically and from the top of my mind, I found that proprietary means: - I cannot run my code on my personal PC - some people I'm collaborating with cannot use my work - when I move to a different job, there is a good chance I cannot reuse my code - even when my new workstation (or my colleague's PC) does have the software installed, there is a good chance the version is incompatible with my code or the license doesn't include some toolbox I'm using - some work I want to make freely available is of no use to someone who cannot afford the software Notably absent from the list is the notion that I cannot check what is happening in the proprietary code. That is because the Matlab functions I needed to check were written in Matlab and perfectly readable. I'm sure the issue is real though, and I would be concerned if a new kind of science developed that produced results through opaque processes in closed source proprietary software. [1] http://www.bestofama.com/Stephen_Wolfram/qisot http://www.bestofama.com/Stephen_Wolfram/qisot
- rplacd 14y ago
  > a new kind of science developed that produced results through opaque processes in closed source proprietary software. The amount of restraint you've just shown in describing NKS is superhuman.
- taliesinb 14y ago
  Because most of Mathematica is written in Mathematica, you can actually introspect large parts of the codebase (by using DownValues). Try e.g.: DownValues[GraphPlot] Sometimes various symbols are 'ReadProtected', which prevents you from seeing their internal definition. But guess what? You can just Unprotect them and remove that attribute. And even introduce new definitions to monkey-patch the language! Only a smallish subset of the language is written in C (for speed). Edit: It's also kinda fun to use Names["*`*"] to see all the defined symbols in a fresh kernel -- there's a lot of hidden stuff there. Try Names["Internal`*"] Names["Developer`*"] to see some stuff the developers kept to themselves :)

JulianMorrison 14y ago

http://julialang.org/ http://julialang.org/ has potential.

onan_barbarian 14y ago

> Sigh. I dream of Mathematica being open source. I dream of a world where people don't compulsively fantasize that for any given piece of software, it should be supplanted by some other piece of software whose main differentiating feature is that it's a FOSS clone.

zackzackzack 14y ago
I have no problem shelling out the money for the (student) license. I've worked at Wolfram and I could probably swing a free license anyway. There are already a variety of clones out there that can do some of what Mathematica already does. d3 and javascript can replicate some of the manipulate work. I mean, look at session: https://github.com/kovasb/session https://github.com/kovasb/session Mathematica being open source would mean that I could look at the source though and see what the hell is going on inside. I'd love to see how they are doing call outs to R and trace through all the interactions between the kernel, the user interface, and W|A. If it were open source, I could see the implementations of all the Mathematical algorithms and look at all the neat optimizations and new results they have found during their work. I care about the "math in Mathematica and am interested in seeing how it all works.
- lshifr 14y ago
  All source code of RLink is available. The Java part is LGPL, and the Mathematica part is not, but is located at /SystemFiles/Links/RLink/RLink.m