|
|
|
|
|
|
by programnature
3569 days ago
|
|
|
Its an interesting question. One reason is Wolfram is extremely talented at language design, which is necessary to build an artifact of this size without self-immolating. Another is that it is a commercial company following a plan. A third is that few people have learned the lessons of Mathematica enough to apply them. |
|
|
It's always a matter of taste when it comes to language design, but I'd have to disagree with this assessment ;-)
> which is necessary to build an artifact of this size without self-immolating
Well, that's certainly not the case. Plenty of huge software artifacts of very impressive quality have been built by non-language-designers.
> Another is that it is a commercial company following a plan
This is certainly true. Or rather, several plans, all of which intersect at common mathematical sub-questions. So then the entire company can leverage effort that's been poured into those components.
> A third is that few people have learned the lessons of Mathematica enough to apply them
Nah. I think the third reason is that Wolfram hires excellent hackers who are also excellent mathematicians. He hires a lot of them. And he puts them to work on the intersectional capabilities I mentioned above.
(Disclaimer: pure conjecture. I've never worked at Wolfram)