5 ms·

Announcing Wolfram Community

40 points by cleverjake 13y ago

af3 13y ago
"Announcing vendor lock-in community"... no, thank you!
- msutherl 13y ago
  Vendor lock-in is not avoided when you use large open source software packages on the order of complexity of Mathematica.
guylhem 13y ago
It's a great opportunity for all Mathematica users to now share code in a well curated website, where all the experts will be. I wonder what will happen to stackexchange.
- omra 13y ago
  I expect it will still exist, after all, there is both AskUbuntu.SE and ubuntuforums.com. It might start seeing less activity though.
codeflo 13y ago
For a moment, I thought this would be a one-person social network where Stephen Wolfram can upvote his own posts.
- webwanderings 13y ago
  I thought he launched a Facebook competitor.
  - wikiburner 13y ago
    Because his Google competitor went so well? :) It was really exciting when Alpha launched. It seemed like search was really going to be shaken up a bit. I even remember Google being a little nervous, launching a big new public data service during Wolfram's big demo. Anyone know what the plans are for Alpha moving forward? Are they now content with their specialized audience, or are they still trying to go for real marketshare?
    - rz2k 13y ago
      I tried to use it a lot when it came out. It seemed like the strategy would be to use trial and error as a method for teasing out tricks in the syntax. However, very little seems standardized, and what works one month, means something else the next month, so it's difficult to get "good" at using it. It is also difficult to be explicit about types, such as what you mean if you input "orange", or "Washington", and it doesn't seem to allow grouping with parentheses, etc—though admittedly I gave up pretty quickly when I got inconsistent results. It probably did become a better "computational engine" than Google Calculator, once Google Calculator seemed to shift to a smaller focus on what it could do. At one point I thought maybe its best functionality was as an alternative to Wikipedia, when comparing different members of a category, because the information would be consistently structured. Yet, the source data is pretty terrible. One, because they appear to have had little strategy for keeping it current, and, two, because without user input it's even more likely that the source is something bizarre, when with Wikipedia someone with domain specific knowledge would have been able to lend a hand.
      - bonaldi 13y ago
        I use it a lot for natural language unit conversion; it's so much better at this than everything else — it's like Fantastical compared to Outlook's New Event dialog.
        rz2k 13y ago
        I can't find a reference to it anywhere, but for a while Google's calculator processed ridiculously esoteric natural language units. If I remember it correctly, after a thread on Reddit, they even implemented "refrigerator heights" and "fingernail years" as units to measure length.
        cleverjake 13y ago
        Could you perhaps be referring to smoots and beard seconds?
- nnethercote 13y ago
  Thank heaven they worked a picture of Stephen into the post.
TempleOS 13y ago
All the divinely inspired code is here on-line as well as on the distribution of God's new temple. http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/LineCnt.html#l538 http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/LineCnt.html#l538 God says... C:\TAD\Text\BIBLE.TXT unken; 24:50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, 24:51 And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 25:1 Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. 25:2 And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. 25:3 They that were foolish took their lamps, and took n
plg 13y ago
oh good another social network
taliesinb 13y ago
To celebrate, a Tau-shirt tutorial: http://community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/63417 http://community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/63417
pibefision 13y ago
I wonder why they prefer that forum (it seems Liferay), and not Discourse which is so much better in many ways.
- taliesinb 13y ago
  Probably because Discourse is still risky, however cool it is: http://www.discourse.org/buy/ http://www.discourse.org/buy/
- escaped_hn 13y ago
  Because liferay has the word "enterprise" in the slogan and discourse doesn't.
teeja 13y ago
We encourage real-name usage to make Community feel more like a family. Because that worked out so well for G+. As for W.A., I keep trying to get it to tell me how much ice covers Antarctica, and it keeps giving me weather reports. No threat of the singularity showing up in WA-ville anytime soon.

40 points by cleverjake 13y ago

af3 13y ago

"Announcing vendor lock-in community"... no, thank you!

msutherl 13y ago
Vendor lock-in is not avoided when you use large open source software packages on the order of complexity of Mathematica.

guylhem 13y ago

It's a great opportunity for all Mathematica users to now share code in a well curated website, where all the experts will be. I wonder what will happen to stackexchange.

omra 13y ago
I expect it will still exist, after all, there is both AskUbuntu.SE and ubuntuforums.com. It might start seeing less activity though.

codeflo 13y ago

For a moment, I thought this would be a one-person social network where Stephen Wolfram can upvote his own posts.

webwanderings 13y ago
I thought he launched a Facebook competitor.
- wikiburner 13y ago
  Because his Google competitor went so well? :) It was really exciting when Alpha launched. It seemed like search was really going to be shaken up a bit. I even remember Google being a little nervous, launching a big new public data service during Wolfram's big demo. Anyone know what the plans are for Alpha moving forward? Are they now content with their specialized audience, or are they still trying to go for real marketshare?
  - rz2k 13y ago
    I tried to use it a lot when it came out. It seemed like the strategy would be to use trial and error as a method for teasing out tricks in the syntax. However, very little seems standardized, and what works one month, means something else the next month, so it's difficult to get "good" at using it. It is also difficult to be explicit about types, such as what you mean if you input "orange", or "Washington", and it doesn't seem to allow grouping with parentheses, etc—though admittedly I gave up pretty quickly when I got inconsistent results. It probably did become a better "computational engine" than Google Calculator, once Google Calculator seemed to shift to a smaller focus on what it could do. At one point I thought maybe its best functionality was as an alternative to Wikipedia, when comparing different members of a category, because the information would be consistently structured. Yet, the source data is pretty terrible. One, because they appear to have had little strategy for keeping it current, and, two, because without user input it's even more likely that the source is something bizarre, when with Wikipedia someone with domain specific knowledge would have been able to lend a hand.
    - bonaldi 13y ago
      I use it a lot for natural language unit conversion; it's so much better at this than everything else — it's like Fantastical compared to Outlook's New Event dialog.
      - rz2k 13y ago
        I can't find a reference to it anywhere, but for a while Google's calculator processed ridiculously esoteric natural language units. If I remember it correctly, after a thread on Reddit, they even implemented "refrigerator heights" and "fingernail years" as units to measure length.
        cleverjake 13y ago
        Could you perhaps be referring to smoots and beard seconds?
nnethercote 13y ago
Thank heaven they worked a picture of Stephen into the post.

TempleOS 13y ago

All the divinely inspired code is here on-line as well as on the distribution of God's new temple. http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/LineCnt.html#l538 http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/LineCnt.html#l538 God says... C:\TAD\Text\BIBLE.TXT unken; 24:50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, 24:51 And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 25:1 Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. 25:2 And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. 25:3 They that were foolish took their lamps, and took n

plg 13y ago

oh good another social network

taliesinb 13y ago

To celebrate, a Tau-shirt tutorial: http://community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/63417 http://community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/63417

pibefision 13y ago

I wonder why they prefer that forum (it seems Liferay), and not Discourse which is so much better in many ways.

taliesinb 13y ago
Probably because Discourse is still risky, however cool it is: http://www.discourse.org/buy/ http://www.discourse.org/buy/
escaped_hn 13y ago
Because liferay has the word "enterprise" in the slogan and discourse doesn't.

teeja 13y ago

We encourage real-name usage to make Community feel more like a family. Because that worked out so well for G+. As for W.A., I keep trying to get it to tell me how much ice covers Antarctica, and it keeps giving me weather reports. No threat of the singularity showing up in WA-ville anytime soon.