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Comment by jordigh | Hacker News Reader

Well, what is the possible catch? I can't see it. My immediate guess is that they think the money isn't in selling the software itself but to have some sort of cloud-based subscription model, and having it on a Raspbian without charge would be a good lure. What ulterior motives do you foresee?

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I define myself as a pragmatic computer user. I use Linux because it is the best tool for the job, but I use closed source programs when they are the best tool.

In program why would someone want a closed source solution that cost $2,000 for profession use and $200 for a one year personal license when we have so many great Open Source languages? Why program in something closed source any more? I can't see that working especially in statistics and math.

How would any closed source (secrets) Mathmatica be a better option than an open source language (Sage)? Really want to understand the thought process.

Also Trojan hHrse analogy is always used when referring to closed source programs coming into an environment. Take your issue up with RMS (Richard Stallman)

I think you're missing the point about why the Wolfram Language is going to be useful on a PI. I don't think the majority case will be mathematics. See here for some ideas:

http://blog.wolfram.com/2013/11/21/putting-the-wolfram-langu...

And re free tools: I doubt very much that Sage has any mechanism for flashing LEDs through the GPIO pins of the Pi, or doing image processing on a RaspiCam, or balancing an inverted pendulum using control theory, or modelling and controlling a sous vide cooker.

For the tinkerer, getting an embedded device to do something cool isn't going to lead to bankruptcy in older age.

I've always wondered, who are these sycophants who are always cheering Wolfram in his long self-aggrandising blog posts? Are they his employees or something?

I suppose it is your prerogative to classify employees as sycophants if you want.

From talking to other people at the company I know of only two Wolfram employees who are active on HN, being myself and carlob.

I don't think I cheer Wolfram, particularly. He's arrogant, sure, his posts are self-aggrandizing (or rather product-aggrandizing), sure -- although I don't think that these are remarkable properties for a CEO to have.

But we have some really nice technology that not many people seem to know very much about, so I comment a lot about it when the opportunity arises. Also, I think NKS has some cool stuff in it -- that's how I got associated with the company in the first place, through an amazing summer school experienc in Pisa, Italy.

> I doubt very much that Sage has any mechanism for flashing LEDs through the GPIO pins of the Pi

You use the RPi.GPIO module, as follows:

    import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

There's some more information here:

https://code.google.com/p/raspberry-gpio-python/wiki/BasicUs...

Good to know, thanks for the link.

> How would any closed source (secrets) Mathmatica > be a better option than an open source language (Sage)? > Really want to understand the thought process.

Probably because it does something Sage can't do. I can think of several reasons why I'm attached to Mma.

1) It has a great help system. Having 3 to 100 examples per help entry, and a See Also section in every single one f them is invaluable, at least for me. I almost can't use any other language's help system after using this one, because it's so good. Good yet simple; nothing prevents others from maintaining at least Examples-driven documentation but almost nobody does that, and I'm not aware of a single other documentation model that would include [consistently] both Examples and See Also sections. With its interactivity and tutorials on top, MMA's DocCenter is completely unbeatable.

2) Sage is for mathematics, Mma is for everything. That's what Wolfram says, and that's what programmers usually giggle at. Ask non-programmers, like me, about it. I use Mma for everything, and I can't imagine using Python instead. I actually feel rather weird explaining this on HN. Have you read about Blub Paradox in “Beating the Averages”? Mathematica vs Sage is Lisp vs Python. Of course I'd never use Sage. Wolfram language is really good: I use it as a basic markup for every piece of structured data that I need to write down in everyday life. I can't think of any single alternative here: other markup languages I know of are way too clumsy for this.

3) Mma has a unique interface, a mix of GUI and CLI. Nobody else has that. IPython Notebooks is a (surprisingly late) attempt to mock it, but for me it looks a bit like an exercise in sympathetic magic: for example, they've copied In and Out labels that are actually Mma expressions, that is, a part of its language. Not that it's an essential part but still, it looks like IPython authors were rather clueless about what they tried to imitate. Mma notebooks themsevles are written in Wolfram language while IPython Notebooks are written in that miserable excuse of a markup called JSON.

Mathematica is Enterprise-class emacs. It's general, powerful, AND also user-friendly and good looking, unlike emacs. I can be sure that lots of people will use it who would never dive into a black hole of a terminal [until absolutely neccesary], yet all the power of CLI will be with them when they use Mma. Well, this sounds like the kind of people I want to write software for.

As for closed source, Mma is just too good for that being a crucial drawback. Besides, a truly mathematical result never depends on anything external so it doesn't matter whether you use black boxes while producing it, or not. If only mathematical result is correct and valuable, then it /must/ be self-contained.

IPython has to my knowledge always used those kind of labels for inputs and outputs. It just follows from the CLI convention.

I looked up how it was in version 0.0.1 from 12 years ago and it turns out the original CLI format was made to look like Mathematica [1]: "Interactive execution with automatic history, tries to mimic Mathematica's prompt system".

[1] https://gist.github.com/fperez/1579699

Ah, it's a 12 years old story, then. I wasn't aware of that; thanks.

> Well, what is the possible catch? I can't see it.

It's obvious. The first exposure to something expensive is often free. Heroin. Women. Alcohol. All those things that end up costing much more than one can imagine at the outset.

It's a classic marketing strategy, and it works.

> My immediate guess is that they think the money isn't in selling the software itself but to have some sort of cloud-based subscription model ...

No, it will be more like Wolfram Alpha, a way to show what a product can do without providing the full experience.

I believe the idea here is to prevent exposure to similar free software such as Sage by exposing students to Mathematica first. Once they learn it, they may be reluctant to learn something else.

It's actually a simple concept. Apple used that in schools for ages, first with the Apple II, then with low-end Macs. The software you use in high-school or college stands a good chance of becoming your choice later in life.

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