[Edu-sig] Computer Hatred

[Jason Cunliffe]

> Since 6 weeks, I am a physics student and I have a lot of Calculus. Part
of
> my Calculus course is an introduction to Maple. I quickly saw that Maple
> would really be able to help me a lot, but even for me (being experienced
> with Python and computers in general), it is a large barrier to type some
> integral from my Calculus textbook into Maple in order to check whether it
> gives the same result as I calculated.

.. ah Yes which is why Wolfram developed Mathematica during past 15+ years.
It is a masterpiece, with its own colorful idiosyncrasies, but wow what
brilliant  deep functional connection between presentation, programming,
symbol and syntax for mathematics.
Wolfram's team got so many things beautifully right and did them so well.

But alas it's still  proprietary and expensive for private citizens - so
Mathematica has missed one boat for its chances to become global meme in
computational literacy. I remember when the NeXT Computer first appear
c.1990 Mathematica was bundled free along with the complete works of
Shakespeare. Who knows, perhaps Steven Wolfram will leave it in his will as
free open source gem for all the world. But by then it will likely be too
much, too late, although still useful, powerful and inspiring.

Mathematica does not succeed as a  general programming language, so in that
regard the world is much better off with a open free Python or similar. I
've not used it, but heard that Maple lacks the vision and rigor of
Mathematica, that it's interface is thin or confusing etc.

There is no reason why Python can not emulate the best of Mathematica.
For example, Scintilla already has folding IDE which hints at Mathematica's
lovely notebooks. But the interactive graphics combined with typographic and
robust publishing integration of Mathematica is a huge undertaking.

The parts for doing it in Python are all there, but not yet any cohesive
vision, nor a core design team with necessary funding assigned to help them
succeed.

What  do you imagine a dozen good people for 3-4 years dedicated full time
to this could achieve?
What do you think that would cost anyway?

Wolfram Research had to invent so much of it, about all of it. But now we
have many good examples, frameworks, packages and widespread protocols and
standards. Should not be so steep at all..

- Jason