zlacker

>>nsoonh+(OP)
Man, I miss Wolfram Language. Once you've twisted your brain a little to grok its usage, it's such an incredibly high-value tool, especially for exploration and prototyping. I saw it more as a do-anything software tool for researchers rather than as a language aimed at programmers, so I put on a researcher hat and tried to forget everything I knew as a professional programmer, and had a few memorable seasons with it around 2016-2020. I remember calculating precisely which days of the year would cause the sunlight to pass through a window and some glass blocks in an internal wall, creating a beautiful light show indoors. It only took a couple of minutes to get a nice animated visualisation and a calendar.

Nowadays I'd probably just ask Claude to figure it out for me, but pre LLMs, WL was the highest value tool for thought in my toolbox.

(Edit: and they actually offer perpetual licenses!)

>>hebeje+N8
Interesting. I have always felt I am missing out on not using tools like Mathematica or MatLab. I see some people doing everything using MatLab, including building GUI and DL models, which I found surprising for a single software suite, and - nowadays - one that is quite affordable (at least the home edition).

Mathematica seems a little pricey but maybe it would motivate me to learn more math.

I would love to read what non-mathematicians use MatLab, Mathematica, and Maple for.

>>dr_kis+bb
Matlab and Mathematica are VERY different.

Matlab and Python are in the same ballpark. Easy syntax and large standard library. Matlab provides a lot more dedicated libraries for niche areas but the overall experience feels the same.

Mathematica doesn't really have a standard counterpart. Jupyter notebooks try to capture the experience but the support for symbolic expressions makes the Mathematica experience very different.