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Re: Mathematica and Lisp

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• Subject: [mg129579] Re: Mathematica and Lisp
• From: Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu>
• Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2013 01:38:55 -0500 (EST)
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On Jan 25, 2013, at 1:34 AM, Richard Fateman <fateman at cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:

> ...
> I think that perfection depends on the context. Though they are
> not my areas of primary interest, I suspect the Mathematica is pretty
> good for some kinds of graphics (though I find it clumsy sometimes,
> that is probably my unfamiliarity with the nuances of Graphics objects),
> and maybe linear cellular automata.
> There seems to be a fairly strong consensus that for numerical
> programming there are other competitors favored in engineering schools.

At least some of that "fairly strong consensus" may be ill-founded today, after Mathematica's numerical methods have evolved.

Typically I encounter engineers and scientists who assure me that M****b is oh so much better than Mathematica, yet they have never actually tried Mathematica in a serious way or looked into efficiency comparisons. They were raised on M****b and so they're convinced it's the be-all and end-all for numerical work, and how dare anybody try to tell them otherwise -- any evidence to the contrary be damned.

While one can compile certain functions within Mathematica, of course it's difficult for any interpreted language to compete for running efficiency with a compiled language.

---
Murray Eisenberg                                    murray at math.umass.edu
Mathematics & Statistics Dept.      
Lederle Graduate Research Tower            phone 413 549-1020 (H)
University of Massachusetts                               413 545-2838 (W)
710 North Pleasant Street                         fax   413 545-1801
Amherst, MA 01003-9305

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Mathematica and Lisp
    • From: "W. Craig Carter" <ccarter@MIT.EDU>

• References:
  • Re: Mathematica and Lisp
    • From: Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu>