
Introducing Tweet-a-Program - phs2501
http://blog.wolfram.com/2014/09/18/introducing-tweet-a-program/
======
jpatokal
Whenever I see Wolfram/Mathematica stuff like this, I'm not entirely sure if
it's incredibly brilliant and will replace all computing as we know it, or
completely batshit insane and impenetrable unless you've spent 20 years
learning it. Usually I lean towards the latter though, and this is supported
by the fact that I've never seen anybody not employed by Wolfram do this kind
of thing.

See also: [http://blog.wolfram.com/2014/08/19/which-is-closer-local-
bee...](http://blog.wolfram.com/2014/08/19/which-is-closer-local-beer-or-
local-whiskey)

~~~
taliesinb
Partly this is because we're so niche still that there just there just isn't a
huge audience of developers to write large programs in WL yet, barring
exceptions like [0]. I have no doubt that HN readers could do some amazing
things in WL if they invested a modest amount of time in learning it.

[0] Emerald Therapeutics:
[http://emeraldcloudlab.com/](http://emeraldcloudlab.com/)

~~~
tragomaskhalos
Time isn't the only investment required though is it? How much is even a
single-seat licence?

~~~
rtkwe
300$ for just the software. Access to their data api's cost ~1k$ to start now
with the desktop software.

------
echoes
Ahh! I went to his SXSW talk this year and was absolutely entranced with the
Wolfram language. It seemed like a real step forward in innovative thinking
and actual "natural language" programming, but I was sad it's proprietary.

I think the power of it is really undervalued - using all the knowledge of the
wolfram-alpha engine to create objects? Such a neat idea! Imagine if Google
built a similar language based on their search engine data - the kinds of
programs people could build and might accidentally build just playing around
boggle the mind.

~~~
taliesinb
In some sense it is surprising that Google hasn't done this already. After
all, Mozilla has seen fit to work on Rust, which will soon replace C++ (god
willing). But if you're organizing the world's information, don't you need a
programming language that can work with that information in a first-class way?

~~~
pjmlp
> which will soon replace C++

In what sense? If you mean traditional business software, maybe.

If you mean real systems programming, OS drivers and such, only when an OS
vendor integrates it into their SDK.

That is how C and later on C++, pushed away all the other alternatives for
systems programming.

------
jedanbik
I love the work this company produces (especially Wolfram Alpha), but jeez,
can't this guy give his employees some credit? People thought Jobs had an
ego...

~~~
taliesinb
When he says "I" I mentally substitute "we". :-)

~~~
samstave
Thats like when Obama or Bush use the word Freedom....

------
taliesinb
I just did a WL equivalent of those Pi shirts you sometimes see:
[https://twitter.com/wolframtap/status/512754733476352000](https://twitter.com/wolframtap/status/512754733476352000)

------
blergh123
I'd really like an explanation of what's so amazing about this language. I saw
the closing keynote today at Strangeloop and I can't understand why people are
so excited. The language is proprietary and I don't feel like it's something I
would actually use myself.

The impression I got was that this project is an inventor's dream, which he
has obviously obsessed over for some time, and it is an impressive feat, it
just comes across as self centered and I have trouble understanding who might
use the language and why..

~~~
michael_fine
From what I can tell, it seems like a quirky lisp with a great set of
libraries, and a very integrated IDE. Is there more to it?

~~~
taliesinb
It also has knowledge about the world... So here for example we're training a
image classifier to distinguish paintings by different artists:

[https://www.wolframcloud.com/objects/051a4cda-5c0e-423b-8872...](https://www.wolframcloud.com/objects/051a4cda-5c0e-423b-8872-533b4af46469)

I don't think there's another language you could use to do that in ~5 minutes.

~~~
taliesinb
Another example, to show off:

By running this code:

    
    
        CloudDeploy[
          FormFunction[
            "text" -> "String", 
            Classify["FacebookTopic", #text, "TopProbabilities"] &, 
            "JSON"
          ],
          Permissions -> "Public"
        ]
    

I get a web form that can be used to enter arbitrary text and have social
media topic inferred on it:

[https://www.wolframcloud.com/objects/0cda973b-8e12-43d7-a9d3...](https://www.wolframcloud.com/objects/0cda973b-8e12-43d7-a9d3-e32b94a58b74)

Try something like "I just had the most amazing meal at Four Burgers today".

------
nebula
Their twitter bot seems to have gone crazy. It keeps sending the results for
my program again and again. Think there is a bug in the bot, and it is picking
up old tweets again from the timeline.

------
rhodin
Some ideas and hacks to use to get a lot of Wolfram language into a tweet:
[http://blog.wolfram.com/2010/12/17/the-mathematica-one-
liner...](http://blog.wolfram.com/2010/12/17/the-mathematica-one-liner-
competition/)

------
userbinator
It's a little amusing to observe Twitter being used as a sort of "transport
layer" for services because of how easy it is for people to use it; a few
decades ago, to interact with a service you would probably open a TCP
connection to it and communicate in a service-specific protocol. Later, that
was largely replaced by the ubiquitous HTTP "web API", and now we see services
built on services like Twitter which are already using a HTTP-based API.

Earlier, someone tried doing similar things with another calculator:
[http://www.hilarymason.com/blog/a-quick-twitter-bot-
bc_l/](http://www.hilarymason.com/blog/a-quick-twitter-bot-bc_l/)

~~~
lmm
I've seen IRC used the same way - and at least there you can move to your own
server if the operator changes their ToS.

------
nthitz
I want to get excited about Wolfram and Mathematica again. All of their blog
posts are rather informative great reads. But then I head over to the pricing
page and am reminded of why I love open source tools.

~~~
taliesinb
The Wolfram Programming Cloud even has a free tier. The online IDE does not
have quite as smooth an experience as the desktop IDE, however.
[https://programming.wolframcloud.com/](https://programming.wolframcloud.com/)

~~~
MaysonL
Is your CDF format ever going to be publicly specified?

~~~
carlob
I don't know about that, but more and more things can be done in CloudCDF,
which is standard open web technology.

------
arikrak
Pretty good marketing move on their part. Though it could also be useful when
you need an math/data image generated.

------
vishalzone2002
using twitter as a compiler(as a service) is pretty cool

~~~
ChuckMcM
I think it would be more interesting if you could dynamically create twitter
bots. Then you could create a functional language in which tweets were
expressions. Then you build the functional tree for your program and then
tweet to its root node to execute it.

~~~
smoyer
I've got code working for both Twitter and Jabber bots ... Would anyone be
interested in working on this for fun?

~~~
kaoD
I would, but how would you dynamically create twitter bots? Just create a
swarm a make them reprogramable?

~~~
smoyer
I was thinking that we could run completely independent twitter bots that
performed some function, (a low-level programming language function or some
higher-level library function), then collaborate on a service that provided a
function catalog. New functions could then be built using the lower-level
building blocks.

------
abava
Check out 411 for Twitter in this connection. Your own code behind tweets:
[http://t411.linkstore.ru](http://t411.linkstore.ru)

------
themodelplumber
Hm, I (@circular) am 1-2 against the monolith. Could be more helpful but I can
see the showing-off-on-twitter potential.

------
empressplay
Hm. I thought running a bot on Twitter was against their TOS? Anyone know any
better on this one? I'd love to run a chatbot on Twitter =)

~~~
droope
Nah not forbidden AFAIK. They even provide ean API you can use.

------
init0
I tried fib(100000) and it works!

------
pmalynin
Tweetgram?

------
xamdam
Clever

