5 ms·

Why don't developers in the Bay Area use Mathematica?

Is it because it's not marketed to developers? Is it because of price? Is there a need for a general purpose data analysis platform?

cmelbye 12y ago
The fact that it's proprietary, closed-source software probably doesn't help.
rpietro 12y ago
language is proprietary, nothing preventing it from going South overnight
e_modad 12y ago
My big problem is the price. It's just outrageous for software that I just want to hack on something every once in a while.
- ryanobjc 12y ago
  individual version is like $250 or so.
  - wolfgke 12y ago
    Only for nonprofessionals ($295). For commercial use it's much more expensive: http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/pricing/industry-individuals.php?desktop http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/pricing/industry-individu...
    - ryanobjc 12y ago
      Yeah. Now if I was establishing a hedge fund, maybe it might be worth it?
      - wolfgke 12y ago
        But then don't expect employees to learn/work with Mathematica in their free time or between jobs.
yzzxy 12y ago
Just wondering, do you see this more outside of the Bay/Valley or in other countries?
chatmasta 12y ago
Pretty clearly the issue is that it's proprietary. It's astounding this is still the case. Has Wolfram ever given his reasoning behind this? Presumably he wants to capture enterprise customers, but there are other ways to do that (optimized compilers, specialized featuresets, virtual machines, IDE licensing, support, etc.) In this day and age, there is no reason for a programming language to be closed source.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
daly 12y ago
Try Axiom
xiaoma 12y ago
The "starter" edition is $1,000 and the standard edition is $2,500. That pretty much kills any sort of use for side projects or lifestyle businesses until after getting significant traction...by which time most people realize python and numpy/scipi is plenty good enough.
- dhbradshaw 12y ago
  Mathematica is free on the Raspberry Pi. (Of course I'm not saying you want to base a business on that, but just that it's a cool way to get Mathematica and play with it.)

Is it because it's not marketed to developers? Is it because of price? Is there a need for a general purpose data analysis platform?

cmelbye 12y ago

The fact that it's proprietary, closed-source software probably doesn't help.

rpietro 12y ago

language is proprietary, nothing preventing it from going South overnight

e_modad 12y ago

My big problem is the price. It's just outrageous for software that I just want to hack on something every once in a while.

ryanobjc 12y ago
individual version is like $250 or so.
- wolfgke 12y ago
  Only for nonprofessionals ($295). For commercial use it's much more expensive: http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/pricing/industry-individuals.php?desktop http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/pricing/industry-individu...
  - ryanobjc 12y ago
    Yeah. Now if I was establishing a hedge fund, maybe it might be worth it?
    - wolfgke 12y ago
      But then don't expect employees to learn/work with Mathematica in their free time or between jobs.

yzzxy 12y ago

Just wondering, do you see this more outside of the Bay/Valley or in other countries?

chatmasta 12y ago

Pretty clearly the issue is that it's proprietary. It's astounding this is still the case. Has Wolfram ever given his reasoning behind this? Presumably he wants to capture enterprise customers, but there are other ways to do that (optimized compilers, specialized featuresets, virtual machines, IDE licensing, support, etc.) In this day and age, there is no reason for a programming language to be closed source.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

daly 12y ago

Try Axiom

xiaoma 12y ago

The "starter" edition is $1,000 and the standard edition is $2,500. That pretty much kills any sort of use for side projects or lifestyle businesses until after getting significant traction...by which time most people realize python and numpy/scipi is plenty good enough.

dhbradshaw 12y ago
Mathematica is free on the Raspberry Pi. (Of course I'm not saying you want to base a business on that, but just that it's a cool way to get Mathematica and play with it.)