5 ms·

I find the conflation of language with runtime in the flag example to be especially obnoxious. All the Wolfram Language looks like to me in this example is a b

I find the conflation of language with runtime in the flag example to be especially obnoxious. All the Wolfram Language looks like to me in this example is a bunch of key value pairs with some hidden calls to a runtime that costs me money to use. Not that I'm against spending money for something that's useful, nor am I against Stephen Wolfram trying to make a buck. It just seems a little misleading to bid this product as a "language" when really it seems like it's just a giant library/extended runtime for Mathematica.

taliesinb 12y ago
Let me correct you: Mathematica is a desktop product, specifically an IDE for the Wolfram Language. It is not a language, though before we had the name "Wolfram Language" it was used to mean that. Other such IDEs are Wolfram Desktop, the Eclipse-based Workbench, and the cloud-based Programming Cloud that is being announced here. And although I'm biased, I don't think it is unfair for our language to meter access to an expensive resource in the form of real world data. There are complex translation layers that mediate access to a diversity of different databases, real time and static, and merge them to present a nice, clean logical view. On top of that, cleaning and curating the data is expensive, and it has to be done in perpetuity -- think how often PersonData (http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/PersonData.html http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/PersonData.html) needs to be updated, for example. Some data we also have to buy outright. Should this prevent us building such real-world data into the language? I suspect in 20 years this idea will be common in new languages, and probably free. For now, it needs to be subsidized, and the basis is fair: we charge Cloud Credits on the basis of the amount of time our servers are kept busy: 0.3 cents per second of computation time on our API servers. As we make our APIs faster, that effective cost will only go down.
- NotAtWork 12y ago
  > Should this prevent us building such real-world data into the language? You didn't build it in to the language, you connected the language to a standard database via the hosted, proprietary runtime. I'm not against this in principle - it's clearly a useful thing - but it's hardly revolutionary. I already pay a company for essentially the same thing (where I use a DSL embedded in a programming language to interact with their database of social media). Again, I'm not against the idea as I understand it, but the misuse of terminology and generally the way that various people associated with the project talk about it is a huge turn off.
  - taliesinb 12y ago
    Entity is part of the documented language -- we've standardized the representation of millions of real-world things. Looking up properties of Entities and parsing text into Entities depends on Wolfram|Alpha, just like the ServiceExecute function relies on Twitter and Facebook to work, and just like Graphics relies on a front-end executable to actually render. These aren't libraries as you might call (say) core.logic in Clojure, because Entity and co integrate tightly across the rest of the language, and because they all share the same System namespace. They aren't quite DSLs either, because if they were the entire language would be a DSL -- rather the language is symbolic, which gives it some properties in common with DSLs. If there is nomenclature that is different or new, it is mostly because the language is different. The only thing I can't defend is the pure in our "pure functions". They're not pure functions, they are lambdas.
    - NotAtWork 12y ago
      Thank you for your reply. Looking through examples, it still appears very much that domain specific calls were added to the very flexible language typically used in Mathematica to essentially extend computation to these new domains using domain specific widgets. (Also, some exchange data types.) I'm still having trouble seeing how this is a radical departure from say, embedding a bunch of domain specific tie ins in a Lisp using macros (or similar constructs) to get a similar syntax across them. I get that the constructs are likely tightly integrated, but I guess I'm still not seeing where it's more than a framework for dealing with particular classes of data running on top of a programming language that targets a hosted run time with a database of facts. I'm not saying that this isn't a useful thing, and entirely worth it for well curated data. As I mentioned, I pay for essentially that service targeting a database about social media. I'm just trying to see if there's something key to understanding the features that I'm missing. If you'll excuse one quasi-dig: it can sometimes be hard to see what something really is and what its use cases are through the hype and marketing.
  - programnature 12y ago
    Have you actually used the computable data functionality in Wolfram products? If you think its a matter of just connecting to a standard database, you are missing the whole point. People in the data business tell you cleaning and preparing the data is 80% of the work. Wolfram has done that for you. And then taken it farther: integrating it directly into language constructs. I think SW's post did a poor job of explaining these capabilities, but in some domains this integration totally trounces what is possible in other systems. A great example of this is how GeoGraphics works: http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/GeoGraphics.html http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/GeoGraphics.html Notice how semantic entities like countries and landmarks are interoperable with the graphics language.
- akater 12y ago
  > Mathematica is a desktop product, specifically an IDE for the Wolfram Language Presenting Mathematica (or, rather, FrontEnd?) as IDE is harmful for its reputation among hackers: 1) Workflow differs from one in traditional IDEs, and lots of build tools are simply not there 2) It has different goals, being a bottom-up environment: users start with tiny one-cell programs; IDEs like Eclipse suggest to “create a new project” by default It's a tool for discovery and improvisation, not for building large programs, with multi-modular source code provided by different independent authors, that is sometimes (often?) written in different languages. “Improvisations and Experiment Environment” or something like that would be a more adequate description. It's not that FrontEnd can't be an IDE too. I believe it can be a better IDE than anything else out there but experienced programmers disagree unanimously. Part of it is personal tastes, part is mind being closed by means of classical IDE heritage, part is not-so-rational disgust towards proprietary software, paid software, S.W., etc. FrontEnd and the language itself encourage users to add features themselves. Those who persist probably end up with the highly personalised product the majority of them could never buy. (+) Still, some features would be universally needed, so one might want to install a package from a public hub, but FrontEnd lacks this feature. (–) I think hackers would appreciate it more if Mathematica (FrontEnd?) were marketed as emacs-like tool. Still, without a proper package manager (and an open package server, or at least an open standard for package server) it would be a hopeless take. — Though I heard something like package manager is coming. :-)
  - taliesinb 12y ago
    You're right, it is more of an emacs-like tool. Probably in the next year or so we will consolidate some ideas of what an IDE should (or could) be for WL. Some Brett Victor like things should be in there, no doubt... And yes, we need to get PacletManager into a state where it is easy to use as a package manager. The only thing (and a big, crucial thing) it is missing right now is explicit dependencies, and a solver. If you have ideas about this please offer them (are you on the Mathematica stack exchange?)
    - szhorvat 12y ago
      The Front End isn't very good at taking the job of an IDE ... But it is a very good notebook interface (doesn't the notebook concept come from Mathematica originally?). Notebook interfaces are excellent for interactive work (a large part of scientific computing) and improvisational programming. It's a pity that they're only becoming popular recently (IPython). Many people still don't get it what notebooks are really good for. For example, the R community seems to think that a "notebook" is for report generation, and none of the "notebooks" for R allow any interactive work (knitr). What's good about the notebook interface is the workflows it allows. Even MATLAB adopted "cell mode" a few years ago which enables the same basic workflow (except it does't have the equivalent of output cells, so it's not quite as good).

taliesinb 12y ago

Let me correct you: Mathematica is a desktop product, specifically an IDE for the Wolfram Language. It is not a language, though before we had the name "Wolfram Language" it was used to mean that. Other such IDEs are Wolfram Desktop, the Eclipse-based Workbench, and the cloud-based Programming Cloud that is being announced here. And although I'm biased, I don't think it is unfair for our language to meter access to an expensive resource in the form of real world data. There are complex translation layers that mediate access to a diversity of different databases, real time and static, and merge them to present a nice, clean logical view. On top of that, cleaning and curating the data is expensive, and it has to be done in perpetuity -- think how often PersonData (http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/PersonData.html http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/PersonData.html) needs to be updated, for example. Some data we also have to buy outright. Should this prevent us building such real-world data into the language? I suspect in 20 years this idea will be common in new languages, and probably free. For now, it needs to be subsidized, and the basis is fair: we charge Cloud Credits on the basis of the amount of time our servers are kept busy: 0.3 cents per second of computation time on our API servers. As we make our APIs faster, that effective cost will only go down.

NotAtWork 12y ago
> Should this prevent us building such real-world data into the language? You didn't build it in to the language, you connected the language to a standard database via the hosted, proprietary runtime. I'm not against this in principle - it's clearly a useful thing - but it's hardly revolutionary. I already pay a company for essentially the same thing (where I use a DSL embedded in a programming language to interact with their database of social media). Again, I'm not against the idea as I understand it, but the misuse of terminology and generally the way that various people associated with the project talk about it is a huge turn off.
- taliesinb 12y ago
  Entity is part of the documented language -- we've standardized the representation of millions of real-world things. Looking up properties of Entities and parsing text into Entities depends on Wolfram|Alpha, just like the ServiceExecute function relies on Twitter and Facebook to work, and just like Graphics relies on a front-end executable to actually render. These aren't libraries as you might call (say) core.logic in Clojure, because Entity and co integrate tightly across the rest of the language, and because they all share the same System namespace. They aren't quite DSLs either, because if they were the entire language would be a DSL -- rather the language is symbolic, which gives it some properties in common with DSLs. If there is nomenclature that is different or new, it is mostly because the language is different. The only thing I can't defend is the pure in our "pure functions". They're not pure functions, they are lambdas.
  - NotAtWork 12y ago
    Thank you for your reply. Looking through examples, it still appears very much that domain specific calls were added to the very flexible language typically used in Mathematica to essentially extend computation to these new domains using domain specific widgets. (Also, some exchange data types.) I'm still having trouble seeing how this is a radical departure from say, embedding a bunch of domain specific tie ins in a Lisp using macros (or similar constructs) to get a similar syntax across them. I get that the constructs are likely tightly integrated, but I guess I'm still not seeing where it's more than a framework for dealing with particular classes of data running on top of a programming language that targets a hosted run time with a database of facts. I'm not saying that this isn't a useful thing, and entirely worth it for well curated data. As I mentioned, I pay for essentially that service targeting a database about social media. I'm just trying to see if there's something key to understanding the features that I'm missing. If you'll excuse one quasi-dig: it can sometimes be hard to see what something really is and what its use cases are through the hype and marketing.
- programnature 12y ago
  Have you actually used the computable data functionality in Wolfram products? If you think its a matter of just connecting to a standard database, you are missing the whole point. People in the data business tell you cleaning and preparing the data is 80% of the work. Wolfram has done that for you. And then taken it farther: integrating it directly into language constructs. I think SW's post did a poor job of explaining these capabilities, but in some domains this integration totally trounces what is possible in other systems. A great example of this is how GeoGraphics works: http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/GeoGraphics.html http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/GeoGraphics.html Notice how semantic entities like countries and landmarks are interoperable with the graphics language.
akater 12y ago
> Mathematica is a desktop product, specifically an IDE for the Wolfram Language Presenting Mathematica (or, rather, FrontEnd?) as IDE is harmful for its reputation among hackers: 1) Workflow differs from one in traditional IDEs, and lots of build tools are simply not there 2) It has different goals, being a bottom-up environment: users start with tiny one-cell programs; IDEs like Eclipse suggest to “create a new project” by default It's a tool for discovery and improvisation, not for building large programs, with multi-modular source code provided by different independent authors, that is sometimes (often?) written in different languages. “Improvisations and Experiment Environment” or something like that would be a more adequate description. It's not that FrontEnd can't be an IDE too. I believe it can be a better IDE than anything else out there but experienced programmers disagree unanimously. Part of it is personal tastes, part is mind being closed by means of classical IDE heritage, part is not-so-rational disgust towards proprietary software, paid software, S.W., etc. FrontEnd and the language itself encourage users to add features themselves. Those who persist probably end up with the highly personalised product the majority of them could never buy. (+) Still, some features would be universally needed, so one might want to install a package from a public hub, but FrontEnd lacks this feature. (–) I think hackers would appreciate it more if Mathematica (FrontEnd?) were marketed as emacs-like tool. Still, without a proper package manager (and an open package server, or at least an open standard for package server) it would be a hopeless take. — Though I heard something like package manager is coming. :-)
- taliesinb 12y ago
  You're right, it is more of an emacs-like tool. Probably in the next year or so we will consolidate some ideas of what an IDE should (or could) be for WL. Some Brett Victor like things should be in there, no doubt... And yes, we need to get PacletManager into a state where it is easy to use as a package manager. The only thing (and a big, crucial thing) it is missing right now is explicit dependencies, and a solver. If you have ideas about this please offer them (are you on the Mathematica stack exchange?)
  - szhorvat 12y ago
    The Front End isn't very good at taking the job of an IDE ... But it is a very good notebook interface (doesn't the notebook concept come from Mathematica originally?). Notebook interfaces are excellent for interactive work (a large part of scientific computing) and improvisational programming. It's a pity that they're only becoming popular recently (IPython). Many people still don't get it what notebooks are really good for. For example, the R community seems to think that a "notebook" is for report generation, and none of the "notebooks" for R allow any interactive work (knitr). What's good about the notebook interface is the workflows it allows. Even MATLAB adopted "cell mode" a few years ago which enables the same basic workflow (except it does't have the equivalent of output cells, so it's not quite as good).