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10 projects to try on your Raspberry Pi using this unusual programming language
Coding club body CoderDojo has put together a guide to projects you can try out using the Wolfram Language.
If you recently bought a Raspberry Pi and are wondering what to do with it, the Raspberry Pi Foundation and CoderDojo have published 10 projects you can try using the Wolfram Language.
The Wolfram Language is different from your typical programming language, in that has a large number of built-in functions for carrying out high-level tasks, such as looking up stock prices or classifying images for facial recognition.
Language creator Stephen Wolfram has explained what he considers sets the language apart.
"It's a new kind of thing. It's what I call a knowledge-based language, it's a language where a vast amount of knowledge about how to do computations and about the world is built right into the language," he said.
"So, right within the language there are primitives for processing images or laying out networks or looking up stock prices or creating interfaces or solving optimization problems."
This broad sweep of built-in capabilities gives the language abilities that aren't found in most other languages out of the gate, for example, typing currentImage[] captures the current image from the computer's camera.
As such, the language is suited to tasks such as retrieving and working with a wide range of data, everything from written language to geographic information, as well as visualizing that data using relatively few lines of code.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday April 08 2019, @06:46AM
Achem...
On one hand, good to have them primitives handy if you need them once in a blue moon.
On the other hand, relying on them regularly makes you "a consumer of data processing" - 'cause there's no way "retrieving and working with a wide range of data" can fit a RasPI, when even a proper PC will have difficulties with large sets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @07:01AM (1 child)
Has Wolfram ever heard of a thing called a library?
Functions from libraries are indistinguishable from functions built into the language... except the library can the upgraded or replaced by a better library in the future.
Large amount of built-ins are the sign of someone who doesn't know language design.
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday April 08 2019, @11:49PM
His language can be viewed as a library where most the usual language overhead is taken away. It has pretty much no learning curve except math itself.
Come to think about it, why anybody who does not design computers has to learn a computer language to program a computer? The computer should already know the language of the programmer.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Hartree on Monday April 08 2019, @07:07AM (2 children)
I'm sure this will be just as revolutionary and game changing as A New Kind of Science. ;)
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday April 08 2019, @06:59PM (1 child)
Just what I was thinking! Now, I did appreciate A New Kind of Science on another level, as more confirmation of the importance of Computer Science. Maybe grade school education should have "'Rogramming" added to the 3 R's, that's just how important and foundation Computer Science may be. But yes, Wolfram seems to think he discovered all that first, when the pioneers of CS beat him to a lot of it by at least half a century. Conway came up with the Game of Life in 1970, and that sparked a lot of interest in cellular automata, but even then the concept had been around for about 3 decades.
However, before charging ahead with the teaching of programming in grade school, we need better programming languages. Why is it that the famous algorithm textbook by CLR uses pseudo-code, instead of a real programming language? Still too much boilerplate, verbiage, and extraneous crap in real languages. Wolfram's new language sounds very much like a repeat of the whole "4th generation" language fad of the 1980s which basically degenerated into libraries of overly specific functions that lacked flexibility.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday April 08 2019, @10:01PM
Maybe 4 R's now...
Well, I think R is a useful language that personally, I think any STEM students should be introduced to early in their studies.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Monday April 08 2019, @08:42AM (3 children)
In the Free Software community we have a name for things like this: Malware. Also sometimes called "apps". Or "Android" If you need such built-in functions, and have no choice but to use gmail, and are still, STILL! using Windoze, because, games. Malware. Malificence. Mal all around. Give me root, or give me death, preferably some CEO's death.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @01:27PM (1 child)
"STILL! using Windoze, because, games"
It would be nice if this was the only reason. Unfortunately colleges require a lot of proprietary software that does not run on a Linux stack. More interestingly they are fostering compliance with the surveillance state by compelling their students to use gmail for school communications.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 08 2019, @05:28PM
The University I work at, requires the use of the internal e-mail address. It's a Microsoft Outlook server, but at least it's not like they're using Gmail/other 3rd party e-mail provider. Unfortunately the stock on windows is very applicable here, as they are fully bought-in to the MS ecosystem. I would guess 99% windows servers, with a sprinkling of Linux and Apple servers. Most of the Apple devices are the few professors/administrators that prefer using Apple, instead.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @03:41PM
How is that? I've never in my life felt even the slightest need to use gmail. I mean, there are services I don't use where I clearly see the advantage of using them, and yet decided against. And there are services where I do see problems, but still decided to use them because there's no viable alternative. And certainly in my weak moments I also have subscribed to some services before really thinking about its implications. But gmail? I don't use it, but I never decided against it because I never even considered using it.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @01:19PM (4 children)
Is it common for creators of computer languages to name the languages after themselves?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday April 08 2019, @01:43PM
I think only if they intend to keep their language proprietary for all time to come. Strictly closed. Inaccessible.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @02:07PM
In case you didn't know: Stephen Wolfram has a new kind of ego.
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Monday April 08 2019, @02:17PM (1 child)
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday April 08 2019, @11:56PM
That was probably because a new language wanted to add some credibility for itself at the beginning. Wolfram done it without any handicap.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday April 08 2019, @05:46PM (2 children)
Like most things Pi it is pointless, like the Pi.
So we have an otherwise smart guy putting out a press release hyping a language with an extensive set of library functions in 2019 like CPAN didn't exist or some shit. Doofus! Then, knowing that hype wouldn't be enough to get traction from wire services he adds a mention of a Pi port because he knows EVERY tech outlet can't resist any story with a Pi hook.
But in the end, who gives a damn about a closed source language in 2019? Assuming it is closed since it only seems to be available on the Pi specific builds of Debian, if there were sources available the odds are good it would be mainlined into Debian itself by now. Pi Foundation apparently doesn't give a crap about Free Software, they have it in https://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/pool/main/w/wolfram-engine/ [raspberrypi.org] instead of contrib. But Pi doesn't even HAVE non-free or contrib sections, only main. Butt siphons.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @07:28PM
The Pi is not pointless. It's the only reason you can buy a $5 computer (Zero W) for DIY with good software support.
(Score: 2) by Farkus888 on Monday April 08 2019, @08:04PM
Well, I agree that this certainly has problems. You mention CPAN though, and I cannot abide Perl. You have proposed a cure that is worse than the disease. I say that in full confidence and everything I know about Wolfram is in the summary and comments.