Re: Mathematica and F#
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg91628] Re: Mathematica and F#
- From: Jon Harrop <jon at ffconsultancy.com>
- Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2008 01:50:15 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <200808271042.GAA21194@smc.vnet.net> <g962q2$c66$1@smc.vnet.net>
peter lindsay wrote: > I am not an expert in either Mathematica or functional programming, but... > is there really any appetite from Mathematica users to tie themselves > into a Microsoft product? I can understand that argument from the open source perspective but Mathematica users are obviously already tying themselves into proprietary products... > Would Haskell not be a safer bet? Haskell has its own trade-offs that I will happily discuss elsewhere. Suffice to say that modern scientific computing is about writing many small disposable "script" programs, e.g. for massaging, analysing and visualizing data. The risks associated with vendor lock-in are then tiny, of course. So I would not hesitate to recommend both Mathematica and F# to working scientists. Not least because they compliment each other extremely well. -- Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/?u