7 ms·

When I was a student at university in 2003-2008, I loved, loved, loved Mathematica language, Mathematica uncluttered cell-based editor and rich interactive docu

When I was a student at university in 2003-2008, I loved, loved, loved Mathematica language, Mathematica uncluttered cell-based editor and rich interactive documentation. You could execute and edit examples right in the doc! I did so many things: nicely formatted pages (much easier to type in complex formulas than in LaTeX), computing simulations, crazy charts etc. I never could understand how people can use Matlab or Maple when there is Mathematica.

tluyben2 13y ago
Yeah I liked it as well; the notebook execution especially. Makes me sad to see how primitive iPython/iHaskell now are compared to the Mathematica editor almost 20 years ago. I hoped it would be the about same experience or better, but it's far from. Especially the web version for iHaskell (I assume the iPython web version is the same?) is horrible, absolutely horrible. But the idea is great and it is possible to make it work well as Wolfram has shown.
- gaius 13y ago
  Well this is how it is now I'm afraid. There are "data scientists" using IPython convinced that they themselves and the tools they use are on the cutting edge. Like there are database people who think MongoDB is advanced. Or web guys using their favourite "framework" kidding themselves they're doing anything more complicated than Perl CGIs did in 1994. It's like an Amiga owner being shown a "multimedia" PC in 1995 and thinking, I was doing all this 10 years ago.
  - tluyben2 13y ago
    Amiga example works; took me definitely over 10 years to stop saying that after I was forced to move to PCs. And then I had it with Unix (SparcStation 5s which never crashed and never had to be rebooted against our uni's 100s of PCs which were mandatory rebooted during the night otherwise they were unusable during the day, and still were actually), luckily everyone listened and we're all using that now. Well no, but at least you CAN now without being hopelessly crippled. Thing is ; these notebook interfaces COULD be really brilliant, but they suck and I don't know why. Maybe just not enough people working on them?
    - gaius 13y ago
      For the same reason that GIMP is no Photoshop.
    - pwang 13y ago
      How much do the people working on them get paid to work on them? What many users of open source don't seem to understand is that actually, honest-to-goodness open source development is a major undertaking and imposition on a person's time. And quality software takes actual teams of actual people with experience and commitment and a basic peace-of-mind about paying their mortgage and putting food on the table.
      - tluyben2 13y ago
        You are right and I do understand that actually. So instead of whining I'll go help improve it. Not the web version for now though; the everything web thing is not working for me as at least my i7/16gb/ssd system is far too slow for productive work in that kind of context.
      - gaius 13y ago
        No, it's more subtle than that. If you have paying customers and hence money, you can pay for experts in domain X to sit down with your programmers and finesse the product. If you don't, then what you have is a wishlist of features but no real, deep understanding of what users use them for. That's why the GIMP is the GIMP, every feature under the sun, in a horrible mishmash interface and for more of its life unusable for professional work because the one feature it really needed, 16-bit colour, wasn't prioritized because none of the devs realized they needed to.
- PieSquared 13y ago
  As the author of IHaskell, I'd love to know what you find lacking! (I agree that there's still a lot of room for improvement) The front-end is entirely IPython, so there's probably not much I can do other than contribute to ipython, but would love to hear concrete suggestions (feel free to use github issues).
  - tluyben2 13y ago
    Sorry if I came on a bit strong ; it was serious disappointment on my side as Haskell hacker and user of Mathematica for my Master almost 20 years ago. Of course yourr work is valued by me and many others and I will try to to work on the iPython interface myself as well as writing the above I thought; why not. I would definitely say that the smoothness of the Mathematica interface, the way it works and interacts currently would be a great thing for programming languages like Haskell. It's just clumsy the way it is now and this is not something you can help but it needs fixing. Let's discuss further somewhere!
    - PieSquared 13y ago
      Hey there! Sorry I missed this comment earlier, but if you see this, please feel free to ping me via email (my email is in my profile!)
- super_mario 13y ago
  I wish Mathematica had vi editing mode. As it is now editing the command line is stupid slow for someone who has lived in vim for 20 years now. This is why I love IPython on the command line. Language is nicer too and editing is a breeze. Of course Python and available libraries are not much of a symbolic computing environment, but for the kinds of problems I deal with its faster to get things done than in Mathematica.
praseodym 13y ago
Except that the Mathematica editor still lacks a decent undo function: http://undo-for-mathematica.alaifari.com/undo-how-useless/ http://undo-for-mathematica.alaifari.com/undo-how-useless/
- carlob 13y ago
  The v10 beta I have has it. So you won't have to wait much longer.
  - primitivesuave 13y ago
    I'm on v10 beta as well, and it still remembers only one undo. Is it v10.0.0.0, or is there a newer release?
    - praseodym 13y ago
      And no redo either, I suppose? Nothing good comes from the current undo function in Mathematica; if you accidentally press it you're bound to lose work.
    - carlob 13y ago
      I shouldn't have said beta. It's more of an internal nightly. I don't think the version number is different though.

tluyben2 13y ago

Yeah I liked it as well; the notebook execution especially. Makes me sad to see how primitive iPython/iHaskell now are compared to the Mathematica editor almost 20 years ago. I hoped it would be the about same experience or better, but it's far from. Especially the web version for iHaskell (I assume the iPython web version is the same?) is horrible, absolutely horrible. But the idea is great and it is possible to make it work well as Wolfram has shown.

gaius 13y ago
Well this is how it is now I'm afraid. There are "data scientists" using IPython convinced that they themselves and the tools they use are on the cutting edge. Like there are database people who think MongoDB is advanced. Or web guys using their favourite "framework" kidding themselves they're doing anything more complicated than Perl CGIs did in 1994. It's like an Amiga owner being shown a "multimedia" PC in 1995 and thinking, I was doing all this 10 years ago.
- tluyben2 13y ago
  Amiga example works; took me definitely over 10 years to stop saying that after I was forced to move to PCs. And then I had it with Unix (SparcStation 5s which never crashed and never had to be rebooted against our uni's 100s of PCs which were mandatory rebooted during the night otherwise they were unusable during the day, and still were actually), luckily everyone listened and we're all using that now. Well no, but at least you CAN now without being hopelessly crippled. Thing is ; these notebook interfaces COULD be really brilliant, but they suck and I don't know why. Maybe just not enough people working on them?
  - gaius 13y ago
    For the same reason that GIMP is no Photoshop.
  - pwang 13y ago
    How much do the people working on them get paid to work on them? What many users of open source don't seem to understand is that actually, honest-to-goodness open source development is a major undertaking and imposition on a person's time. And quality software takes actual teams of actual people with experience and commitment and a basic peace-of-mind about paying their mortgage and putting food on the table.
    - tluyben2 13y ago
      You are right and I do understand that actually. So instead of whining I'll go help improve it. Not the web version for now though; the everything web thing is not working for me as at least my i7/16gb/ssd system is far too slow for productive work in that kind of context.
    - gaius 13y ago
      No, it's more subtle than that. If you have paying customers and hence money, you can pay for experts in domain X to sit down with your programmers and finesse the product. If you don't, then what you have is a wishlist of features but no real, deep understanding of what users use them for. That's why the GIMP is the GIMP, every feature under the sun, in a horrible mishmash interface and for more of its life unusable for professional work because the one feature it really needed, 16-bit colour, wasn't prioritized because none of the devs realized they needed to.
PieSquared 13y ago
As the author of IHaskell, I'd love to know what you find lacking! (I agree that there's still a lot of room for improvement) The front-end is entirely IPython, so there's probably not much I can do other than contribute to ipython, but would love to hear concrete suggestions (feel free to use github issues).
- tluyben2 13y ago
  Sorry if I came on a bit strong ; it was serious disappointment on my side as Haskell hacker and user of Mathematica for my Master almost 20 years ago. Of course yourr work is valued by me and many others and I will try to to work on the iPython interface myself as well as writing the above I thought; why not. I would definitely say that the smoothness of the Mathematica interface, the way it works and interacts currently would be a great thing for programming languages like Haskell. It's just clumsy the way it is now and this is not something you can help but it needs fixing. Let's discuss further somewhere!
  - PieSquared 13y ago
    Hey there! Sorry I missed this comment earlier, but if you see this, please feel free to ping me via email (my email is in my profile!)
super_mario 13y ago
I wish Mathematica had vi editing mode. As it is now editing the command line is stupid slow for someone who has lived in vim for 20 years now. This is why I love IPython on the command line. Language is nicer too and editing is a breeze. Of course Python and available libraries are not much of a symbolic computing environment, but for the kinds of problems I deal with its faster to get things done than in Mathematica.

praseodym 13y ago

Except that the Mathematica editor still lacks a decent undo function: http://undo-for-mathematica.alaifari.com/undo-how-useless/ http://undo-for-mathematica.alaifari.com/undo-how-useless/

carlob 13y ago
The v10 beta I have has it. So you won't have to wait much longer.
- primitivesuave 13y ago
  I'm on v10 beta as well, and it still remembers only one undo. Is it v10.0.0.0, or is there a newer release?
  - praseodym 13y ago
    And no redo either, I suppose? Nothing good comes from the current undo function in Mathematica; if you accidentally press it you're bound to lose work.
  - carlob 13y ago
    I shouldn't have said beta. It's more of an internal nightly. I don't think the version number is different though.