Not just that, he also seems to think that he invented Lisp's idea of code-as-data: "In most languages there’s a sharp distinction between programs, and data, and the output of programs. Not so in the Wolfram Language. It’s all completely fluid. Data becomes algorithmic. Algorithms become data. There’s no distinction needed between code and data." ( http://blog.wolfram.com/2013/11/13/something-very-big-is-com... )

Kinda funny considering how the Mathematica language is built on top of the M-expressions that lisp never bothered to implement.

Note that this is marketing copy aimed at Mathematica users, mainly scientists and mathematicians, most of whom probably don't know what LISP or Haskell are.

I think that's part of it. It's also aimed at non-hackers who took a look at Clojure once and said 'yuck'. And managers who are being 'groomed' not to totally freak out when someone on their team says "can we use the Wolfram Language on such and such a project?".

To be fair, our brand of monotonicity is somewhat different from LISP's, as I've discussed before at length on HN.

I assume you meant homoiconicity?

Sort didn't supervise autocorrect properly

Like RLISP, the implementation language of REDUCE?

Back when he posted about trying to figure out what to name the language, I thought Ego would be perfect.

Wolfram: Wolfram

W-Wolfram.

Or Wolfram-W

Seems more like mathematician ego rather that Wolfram's ego. I see the same attitude in xkcd, for example.

http://xkcd.com/435/

There was also a recent article on here about how programming is a dead-end, non-prestigious job in research circles. Sounds like a continuation of that sentiment.

Randall Munroe is making fun of that attitude in xkcd, not supporting it. He was a physicist at NASA, but has done a decent amount of programming.

Really? I always read it as an endorsement.

The science "stack" is something that, I think, most people agree exists. Just as it exists in technology. But I always read the comic as making fun of the feeling of superiority in being deeper down the stack.

No, not everyone does. Physicists, for example, are sometimes known to maintain that math is only human models approximating underlying physical substrates, and that pure / theoretical math is an artificial construction whose validation depends on finding physical manifestation of the theory. That would put experimental physicists to the right (above?) the mathematicians.

But even if you did believe the mathematicians claim, by the same logic you would philosophy above them.

I think it pretty amazing reading physics forums where it seems clear that a lot of the people think mathematics is almost some kind of joke until substantiated by physicists. And then there was the usually insightful Lawrence Krauss's blanket dismissal of philosophy — while philosophical musings that contradict known data are problematic, much of philosophy lies outside the domain of physics.

Anyway, in regard to the idea of science "stack", I kind of enjoyed Alan Lightman's Reunion where he poses a nineteenth century astronomer's obsession with and histrionics in response to rejection by a cute young woman in his observatory as a kind of "proof" that biology studied more powerful forces. The event simultaneously lead to the astronomer abandoning his career and inspired hers in biology.[1] Though obviously meant as joke, the author himself transitioned from a successful career as a physicist to writing and teaching literature.

[1] http://books.google.com/books?id=4nQhY2fbX2IC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA1...

Disagreeing on the configuration is different than disagreeing on the existence.

Ok, I interpreted it wrongly. But I still don't agree. I've worked in academia and a NASA research center and never did I observe a respected scientist making such an observation. I know that's anecdotal evidence, but I don't know what else to fallback on.

I always thought that the old tired line of "X is the core science!" was a trap that only mathematicians, physicists, and ignorant grad students fell into. I wasn't aware that any respected (and respectful) scientists actually took it seriously.

I think perhaps you're still thinking of a value judgement. To me, it is obvious that we have different fields of science for different scales. For example, there are many aspects of physics that a biologist takes for granted or doesn't even reason about when considering biological systems. They may need to reason about, say, chemistry from first principles. But I would be surprised for many biologists to have to apply much reasoning from quantum mechanics.

Again, this is not a value judgement. A similar thing exists with computers. People who write web applications depend on user-application infrastructure, who depend on systems applications, which depend on operating systems, which depends on computer architecture, which depends on materials engineering and so on. As a systems programmer, I regularly reason about operating systems and computer architecture. But I never reason about the properties of the materials that make the hardware. The computer architects, though, may have to reason about the materials, as it can provide constraints to their designs.

As a general principle, it is always good to have at least some knowledge of 2 levels of abstraction below (and above) where you work, because they tend to leak!

Emergence it is!

Read the image alt text...

Fair enough. I do think it does make a good example of prevailing attitudes, regardless of whether the author has them.

Would you mind linking said article?

i think that's a reference to the fact that Mathematica uses M-expressions and operator precedence. it doesn't look like lisp, but if you FullForm an expression you will see that it's all just M-expressions.

that said, i think it is lisp-like as a design choice. the Mathematica language itself is more raw than even lisp -- you can take the language in different design directions. Wolfram chose to include lisp aspects

Wow, don't know if they are delusional or just wrong.

Those categories aren't exclusive.

Clearly both.

Yeah that's pretty bad.