Because it’s got the unique feature of having a huge amount of computational knowledge built right into it: knowledge about algorithms, knowledge about the real world, knowledge about how to automate things. Yes, it’s an extremely powerful and productive ( symbolic, functional, …) programming language. (By the way, you can run it immediately on the web in the Wolfram Language Sandbox.) The most important thing is to realize that the Wolfram Language as it now exists is really a new kind of thing: a full-scale computational language. It’s worth explaining a bit about how I see the Wolfram Language these days. And what the Free Wolfram Engine for Developers now does is to package it so it’s convenient to insert into a whole range of software engineering environments and projects. But increasingly it’s also being used “behind the scenes” as a key component in building production software systems. Many people know the Wolfram Language (often in the form of Mathematica) as a powerful system for interactive computing-and for doing R&D, education, data science and “computational X” for many X. And as of today, we’re making it available for anyone to download, for free, to use in their software development projects.

It’s what’s inside Wolfram|Alpha-as well as an increasing number of major production systems out in the world. It’s what powers our desktop products (including Mathematica), as well as our cloud platform. It’s what implements the Wolfram Language, with all its computational intelligence, algorithms, knowledgebase, and so on. The Wolfram Engine is the heart of all our products. It’s a full engine for the Wolfram Language, that can be deployed on any system-and called from programs, languages, web servers, or anything. I want to make sure the answer to this can always be: “Yes, it’s easy!” And to help achieve that, we’re releasing today the Free Wolfram Engine for Developers. But too often, there’s an awkward silence, and then they’ll say, “Well, no. But then I’ll ask them, “So, are you using Wolfram Language and its computational intelligence in your production software system?” Sometimes the answer is yes.

I’ll be talking to a software developer, and they’ll be saying how great they think our technology is, and how it helped them so much in school, or in doing R&D.

Mathematica cloud