[Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index]

Re: Stephen Wolfram's recent blog

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg129835] Re: Stephen Wolfram's recent blog
• From: Peltio <peltio at twilight.zone>
• Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2013 05:59:02 -0500 (EST)
• Delivered-to: l-mathgroup@mail-archive0.wolfram.com
• Delivered-to: l-mathgroup@wolfram.com
• Delivered-to: mathgroup-newout@smc.vnet.net
• Delivered-to: mathgroup-newsend@smc.vnet.net
• References: <kffng1$7ji$1@smc.vnet.net>
• Reply-to: peltioNOSP at Mgmail.com.invalid

danl at wolfram.com ha pensato forte :

> It raises the question of what to call the programming language of 
> Mathematica.

I've always called it (and seen it called) "Mathematica". Like in "a 
small Mathematica program..." or "few lines of Mathematica code...", or 
"the Mathematica programming language is..."
What's wrong with that?

It's not marketing viable since now there are more products, apart from 
Mathematica itself?
I really hope SW will resist to the tentation to name the language 
after himself. That would be so awkward, IMBO. And I want to stress the 
"B",here.

Besides, I've always considered Mathematica more of a 'meta-language' 
than a language itself [*]. All that was before the bells and whistles 
brought on by Manipulate and the CDF format. It somehow scares me that 
nowaday the Wolfram Library (again, what was wrong with "Mathsource"? 
Still marketing needs, I guess) has practically no  entries and all the 
action is in the graphical appealing realm of "Wolfram Demonstrations". 
Don't get me wrong, it's good to have a means of expressing concepts in 
pictures, but... it reminds me the transition from CLI experts to 
mouse-dependent /simia clicans/.

That said, I like the proposed "Tungsten". It's dense, it's heavy, it's 
hard, and it brings light - the kind of light that comes from bright 
ideas. It could still appease the personality (or corporation) cultors 
(wolframium--->tungsten) but it won't be as awkard as having a language 
named after a (living) person. After all, I don't think Miss Lovelace 
would have named a language after herself.

Cheers,
Peltio

[*] I guess "Meth" is a no-no, uh? :-)

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Stephen Wolfram's recent blog
    • From: ?iso-8859-1?Q?Ra=FAl_Mart=EDnez?= <raulmart@mac.com>