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Mathematica 6 Launched
Ed Pegg writes "Wolfram Research has just released Mathematica 6. That link, in addition to the usual 'dramatic breakthrough' material, has an amazing flash banner that simultaneously shows a thousand mathematical demonstrations all at once. The animations came from the Wolfram Demonstrations Project, a free service with 1200+ dynamically interactive examples of math, science, and physics, all with code. For the product itself, much is new or improved, with built-in math databases, improved visualizations, and more."
I think Mathematica is ok but I still prefer Maple. The coding seems to be more regular and fluid.
As Mathematica seems to be transitioning more and more into the realm of visualization, I wonder when Wolfram Research will add support for 3D-accelerated rendering. A lot of things I've drawn in Mathematica have been somewhat limited by the software's non-accelerated output capability.
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Mathematica has a killer engine (kernel), but a lousy UI, and it costs a shocking amount of money. Mathematica was one of the first pieces of software to scan your computer's MAC address and serial number while you entered the activation key, so it could not be installed on more than one computer (this after the $250-$1000 price tag). A student can get the castrated $250 version, but the real version is considerably pricier. Wolfram's treatment of his users is as distrustful as Micro-Suck.
Why can't the FOSS community beat Wolfram at this? Octave, Maxima, Yacas; they all fail miserably in comparison. The UI for Yacas is so idiotic that the function that transposes a matrix is Transpose[], a nine-character entry for an operation that a real mathematician may use a few hundred times in a given program. At least Mathematica is smart enough to use T (or at least it was when I last used it, at 4.0). Why can't we do better than this?
The best UI of any CAS was the UI for the built-in graphing calculator for Mac OS 9. The current version, NuCalc, is available for Mac and Windows, but it is proprietary, and there is no plan for a Linux/UNIX version. The FOSS community can put a UI like NuCalc over a Maxima engine, use MathML and/or LaTeX for the syntax (like LaTeX input, MathML output). Use code from GNU TeXmacs for the UI, but include the beautiful way that NuCalc simplifies fractions and radicals (and algebraic equations) by clicking on them with the mouse. Brilliant. And possible. Future generations of math and physics and engineering grad students will thank us.
"Indeed, it is wise never to consider any form of electronic data as final." --Arnold Robbins
So It seems they've finally caught up to the 21st century....
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Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
I hope they fixed the horrible bugs with the exponential integrals. IIRC this one was completely wrong
} ]
Integrate[Exp[-a*x+i*b*x]/(x^2+y^2),{x,0,infinity
Maple can't do them either, so it's not like I'm just bagging Mathematica. Exponential integrals have a branch cut in the complex plane and the programmers never seemed understand it. Not that Mathematica was capable of simplifying the resulting sum of logarithms, because it wasn't, but at least it could give you something correct.
Here's wishing for the best from a program that doesn't get supported with bug patches. I reported this years ago. Yeah it's a bug, but no it won't get fixed in my copy. Why would I upgrade otherwise?
There is also a serious scientific issue in using closed-source software for data analysis or theoretical calculations. All scientific work should be transparent to review and reproducible, from first principles, in order to find validate any findings. A black box code is antithetical to this principle.
Mathematica, wonderful as it is, should only be used for prototyping.
Why? Because when it does its symbolic algebra thing, it largely acts as a black box. You've got no idea how it got its answers. So you can't rely on it.
So, if you're using it to figure out any symbolic algebra out that's part of research that you're later going to publish, at best it's useful for finding things which you then have to show by hand anyway.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
http://www.09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.com/ has been taken down - we'll never be able to access the list of places where the number 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0 can be used. Who knows what 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0 means and if it can be used for any purpose? Somebody out there is trying to cover it up - but I think we can find the smoking gun.
Sayint "the support for it on Linux would have already been better" is hyperbole at best and irrelevant to the terms of my question at worst. I asked "all other things being equal" what would OSS have done to make the situation better. If he had fired it up on Linux and discovered it didn't work well do you really think a legion of Linux coders would've immediately answered his call for help and fixed the problem on the spot? Maybe some would've...maybe not....and it's questions like that that made me ask for more information. Just because you feel that "Everyone got that" with regards to the licensing you can't demonstrably prove your point. The original post seemed to express equal frustration with the licensing, performance, and handling of old work units. That's why I asked for more information. You're comment of "everyone got it" is simultaneously condescending and a perfect example of the insular nature and head-burying attitude of OSS advocates.