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by cobbal 609 days ago
Mathematica also has some fairly advanced typographic syntax. Matrices, subscripts, integral signs, with a decent input system to match. Type <ESC>dint<ESC> to get a definite integral with placeholders.

One particularly nice thing about it is that it's completely optional sugar over a lispy "FullForm" syntax, and it's easy to convert between the two.

I'd encourage everyone to play with it, but it's sadly non-free.

2 comments

> it's sadly non-free.

you could get Wolfram engine for free (use your home e-mail address) which is basically text io single seat Mathematica.

Then you download WLJS notebook interface and voila, you all set...

Upvoted. I have a love/hate relationship with Mathematica, but it is so far ahead of its time in a lot of ways. It's like Jupyter Notebooks dialed up by 100 and fully integrated with everything from linear algebra to calculus to graphics to graph theory to plotting to optimization and machine learning so on. I just find the functional like language (a term rewriting system) to be hard to grasp at times and it being a commercial product means it will eventually lose out in some ways.
Yes. And Theodore Grey actually invented the notebook UX I believe for Mathematica around 2000-ish or maybe a bit before. Jupyter notebook came after that.
Yeah I understand Mathematica notebooks came first. I meant for my comment to allude to that, but when re-reading see I forgot to mention it. Thanks for adding context. I assumed Nathematica's notebook UI was even older than that.