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Free-Form Linguistic Input In Mathematica 8
vbraga writes "With the release of Mathematica 8, it now allows input through free-form English instead of the Mathematica syntax, just like the Wolfram|Alpha engine. The results are impressive. From the blog post: 'I routinely found myself using free-form linguistics as an integral part of longer computations — randomly interspersing Mathematica syntax and free-form linguistics on different lines in a Mathematica session, and just using whichever was most convenient for a particular input. And here's an exciting part: in Mathematica 8 the free-form linguistics doesn't just operate line-by-line. It knows the context in which it's used in a notebook, so you can use it to build things up.'"
So can you can say things like "there exists a post for which the ordinal index is one?"
Judging from the article, this amounts to some fairly rich integration with Wolfram Alpha.
Now why would it make sense to, in essence, turn Mathematica into a partially cloud-based application? Could it be because of all the millions of college students around the world who have pirate copies? Surely not!
How is this going to help me find Natalie Portman get all these hot grits out of my pants? Natural language is all good, and this is a huge step forward, but in 2010, I won't be truly impressed with a tech demo until it can grasp antiquated slashdot memes from almost a decade ago. I know you guys at Wolfram are reading this, so I fully expect something unexpected when I calculate the number of surface area of football fields it takes to hold the library of congress printed out on 8.5x11" paper with 1" margins. Natural language is one thing for mathematicians, it's another for the average 4chan user. Now that's bleeding edge.
moox. for a new generation.
There is an inherent problem with free-form linguistic input to computer systems.
If it doesn't have near-perfect comprehension of a wide range of topics, it's
frustrating as hell. It's like talking to a person that is mostly there, but has
brain lesions that wiped out part of their memory or frontal lobe, making them
oblivious to some common concepts and ways of speaking.
It's directly analogous to the "uncanny gulf" between a near-perfect computer-graphics person
and a real person. It freaks the hell out of people.
I'm not saying that natural language interfaces are always going to be a bad idea, but
the system underneath needs true comprehension of the world and the motives of speakers,
and of many ways of expressing the same thing. The bar is very, very high.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
I've actually found myself always needing to look up the exact syntax for Alpha, sometimes for even what I would think common tasks are, "solve for", "graph f and g", etc, because Alpha rarely seems to accept my "freeform" input.
This headline and "article" is another effing Slashdot sponsored advertisement.
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
(Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)
That could theoretically include the quantum states of all the atoms in ink on the piece of paper, so who knows, one sheet might be all you'd need.
</silly_pedantic_mode>
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
When you are programming think about how often you use code completion because you can't remember parameter order, and how often you google stuff because you can't remember the exact class/function name. This lets you "google" without leaving the page, and cuts down on the amount of typing necessary. The fact that they allow you to refine the interpretation is what really makes this the difference between a frustrating and smooth experience.
I could not yet try Mathematica 8 out, but I hope one will be able to turn the feature on and off. A switch like in "perl -w" should be built in. Mathematica is first of all also a programming language, especially for Mathematics and colloquial language is not precise. It could be be frustrating if wrong syntax still produces reasonable results. Incorrect, but working code might become the standard if one does not notice. Its like with memory allocation errors in C produced by incorrect code which still compiles. It will haunt the programmer in the long term.
sage is where it's at.
Yeh, yeh, but I still prefer MATLAB!
This is awesome. I have (Well the Uni does) Mathematica installed, but I cant remember the last time I used it instead of Alpha. For heavy lifting I usually use MATLAB anyway.
You could always learn the language, and excel at it. I've tried Maple, MATLAB, and Mathematica.
Maple was used primarily by undergrads to compute simple indefinite integrals and derivatives, and display them all "pretty" (insert MATLAB pun here) in a Tex-like format. Mathematica was almost on-par with MATLAB. Meanwhile, MATLAB seems to be the only math package used in all the physics and engineering labs I've visited, runs several orders of magnitude faster, and is excellent for algorithm testing. GNU Octave also mimics it decently enough.
The equivalent of code completion or syntax interpretation/correction is nice, but I've never had any use for it W.R.T. standard or built-in library functions. Maybe for learning a random third-party library, at most. Even them, being a Vi user, it takes just as much time to look up a function prototype in FVWM + Vi as it does to wait on MS Visual Studio's code completion.
This looks like a nice feature for new users, but I can see it being useful for new users or people for whom math is not a strong subject. Sadly, this seems to fill a void: people who can't do math, thinking they now can thanks to the "magic" of technology.The examples demonstrated in TFA are trivial (ie: grade 8 level). Can it, say, determine the conditional variance based on a series of PDFs?
Mathematica syntax is actually quite easy once you get used to it. This is enhanced enormously by the excellent help/reference/tutorial database. Can't remember the syntax for a certain command? Curious about options? Need a similar command but can't remember/don't know it? Highlight your command and hit F1. Takes all of about 2 seconds, and you have all the requisite knowledge to construct some pretty sophisticated functions. I'm a physics student, and I've used Mathematica extensively for both quick and dirty and more involved numerical work, and in this respect its proved invaluable. My one reservation is that it's handling of procedural programming blows-- sometimes I wish I knew C better than I do...
Very good for beginners, potentially useful for more experienced users, but something that's not really critical for serious development. Honestly though, I'd see this as useful for something like formatting TeX input. For something numerical though where innocent errors can turn out pretty serious, this could cause a lot of headaches. Use with caution....
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
This headline and "article" is another effing Slashdot sponsored advertisement.
I find it more interesting than the other current headlines. Slashvertisement and news aren't necessarily distinct, depending on the crowd.
The thing that always bothered me with this is that math only is a subset of philosophy.
It makes me really wish that I knew enough math for the program to have any use.
I once tried to apologize to the developers for pirating Mathematica. The just laughed at me and said that was impossible. :(
We are all grownups here. If you feel you need to swear in order to communicate your opinion properly, then do so. Otherwise you look like a child.
Yes, but does it still have just one level of undo?
I've actually found myself always needing to look up the exact syntax for Alpha,
If you think that then you're just going to break down in a teary mess if you ever try to do something with Mathematica. Maybe this is news because it's actually news. "Science company with hard to use program which is the bane of every college student's existence responds by attempting to understand what students want." Given how complicated the syntax in many of these programs are it is actually genuinely refreshing to see a company make an effort even if it doesn't meet your stringent requirements. I like most of my fellow college graduates have almost worn the "h" "e" "l" and "p" keys off our keyboard trying to understand matlab syntax.
Sometimes we just want to do something, not read a man page. Anything that helps this is refreshing news indeed.
To the cloud, to the cloud. Man the lawyers.
Wolfram alpha has just updated its TOS: By using this software, you agree you owe Wolfram $200 for each year of usage, and that he owns any findings in Maths that you may come by by using this software.
and still no fucking undo. what a freaking pile.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=meaning+of+life
Result :
42
There is a huge upcoming market for symbolic math programs in high school education. Right now a lot of students pay 200$ for a calculator, but in 5 years from now most of these students will be using a computer program. But frankly Mathematica is not user friendly enough to compete in this market.
My school uses a program named nspire CAS. This program has a user interface that looks like the wored formula editor. This is slightly annoying for a trained programmer, but it is really good for the high school students, because the don't have to worry about the parathesis and stupid spelling mistakes.
If mathematica wants to be useful, then they should focus on getting the basics right rather than adding speech recongnition.
While not completely free-form, writing interactive fiction in Inform 7 is done mostly in natural (if somewhat simplified) English. So it's not like these things are new.
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny