Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

[deleted]


You use that quote misleadingly. Stephen (not Steven) wrote:

"My goal with the Wolfram Language in general—and Wolfram Programming Cloud in particular—is to redefine the process of programming"

That's a goal, not a claim about the product. And one that many people in the industry share, and routinely espouse.


I think that's a very generous interpretation - assuming that you mean the goal is long-term, else it basically is a claim anyway. Elsewhere he talks about "building up technology stack that is needed" in two previous products, which is now "in definitive form" - suggesting that the "goal" is in terms of a succession of products of which this is (close to) the pinnacle, rather than a long-term goal for the current product. He also outright states that this language is [now] "a new type of programming language" which "makes feasible for the first time all sorts of programming that were basically absurd to consider before" (emphasis mine), which is along the same lines as "redefining programming".

As a Wolfram Research employee I suppose you are in a privileged position regarding what Wolfram meant, but that's what I'm reading from what he said.

Oh, and I'm not outright stating the language does not redefine the process of programming - depending on your definition of "redefine", and whether the language lives up to the hype (I have barely tried Mathematica and certainly it looks very powerful in some areas). Nor is wanting to do so unique to Wolfram - things like Bret Victor's "The Future of Programming" attempt to take up the same kind of mantle. I am merely criticizing the idea that Wolfram didn't say it does.


It's not misleading at all --hinging on a literal reading of that quote is just disingenuous. For the record, further down that blog post[1], Wolfram writes (emphasis added):

"So what does it all mean? I think it's pretty important, because it really changes the whole process --and economics-- of programming. I've even seen it quite dramatically within our own company. As the Wolfram Language and the Wolfram Programming Cloud have been coming together, there've been more and more places where we've been able to use them internally. And each time, it's been amazing to see programming tasks that used to take weeks or months suddenly get done in days or less."

How is that not a very concrete claim about the product?

[1] http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2014/06/23/wolfram-programming-...


Those are concrete claims (wrong or right), but they are made after Wolfram has shown why he thinks they are so, not at the beginning of the post like the now-deleted parent quoted.


Oh ok I see your point now. I stand corrected.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: