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Re: Mathematica as a programming language. / Holy War?

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg3159] Re: Mathematica as a programming language. / Holy War?
• From: wagner at bullwinkle.cs.Colorado.EDU (Dave Wagner)
• Date: Fri, 9 Feb 1996 03:01:45 -0500
• Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

In article <4f964s$dp3 at dragonfly.wolfram.com>,
Richard J Fateman <fateman at peoplesparc.cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
>Unfortunately, intermediate/advanced programming requires that users
>learn or guess about the painful stuff. e.g. packages, the mysterious
>underlying default decisions in plotting, numerical code, what is
>simplification, etc.

This is unfair.  When you program in C, you don't worry about what
numerical algorithms are being used by the C library math functions
internally.  Well, you may worry about it, but it's not a language
issue.

You're right about packages, though -- they are quite mysterious, and
the way they work seems to be quite orthogonal to anything else in
the language.  I just finished an 11-page article for TMJ about
contexts -- not how to write packages, mind you, but just contexts.

>Mathematica works great for 100% correct input.

Which language are you using that works great for less-than-100% correct
input?  Enquiring minds want to know!  Send me a compiler ASAP! :-)

		Dave Wagner
		Principia Consulting
		(303) 786-8371
		dbwagner at princon.com
		http://www.princon.com/princon

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