On May 20, 9:57 am, Jason Grout <jason-s...@creativetrax.com> wrote:
> Vinzent Steinberg wrote:
> > On May 19, 2:25 pm, mark mcclure <mcmcc...@unca.edu> wrote:
> >> On May 19, 2:08 am, Jason Grout <jason-s...@creativetrax.com>
> >> Not necessarily. Evidently, there will be an API interface to
> >> Wolfram Alpha that would, presumably, have its own terms
> >> of use. Although, exactly what the use of a programmatic
> >> interface to a web-site that offers a lot of answers to
> >> relatively vague questions is not yet clear to me.
>
> > It would be also an interface to mathematica.
>
> Good point. Alpha does integrals as well. That might be useful.
Wolfram Alpha is not a simple interface to Mathematica. While it
understands a small subset of very basic commands, it chokes on
most input. A very simple example is 'GraphPlot[{1 -> 2}]'. A more
complicated example is:
NIntegrate[Sin[E^(1/x)], {x, 0, 1},
WorkingPrecision -> 40, MaxRecursion -> 20]
This second example uses options to try to improve the estimate
of a numerical integral. It seems that Wolfram Alpha doesn't
understand Mathematica options at all. (Of course, if I was smart,
I'd use u-substitution to tame that integrand a bit.)
A main objective of Wolfram Alpha is to map natural language
queries to precise (Mathematica) input. It seems to me that it
would be difficult to use this type of interface for any serious work.
Presumably, the forth coming, lower-level Wolfram Alpha APIs
will offer more precise control. Whether their licensing scheme
will allow a Sage interface is another matter.
Mark
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