How Wolfram Alpha Notebook Edition fits into the mix is also not quite clear to me.

Hi Philip

Wolfram|Alpha Notebook Edition, or WANE, was designed to offer the simplicity of W|A but without the one-off/disposable nature of it. The dedicated development team did an incredible amount of work on this product so that the suggestion bar is tailored to this market, they can do everything they need via free-form input and it is a different overall experience from Mathematica. We are introducing the power and flexibility of notebooks to a lot of W|A users and they are responding well to it.

We are currently marketing this product to W|A users, High Schools, and Junior Colleges. WANE is cheaper but less powerful than Mathematica, which is what these markets are asking for as they are not ready for M/WL. Yet. What's great for traditional WL users is that "Wolfram|Alpha-Mode Notebooks" are available in the cloud and via the desktop clients for Mathematica and Wolfram|One.

Werner, in my opinion most users of Mathematica can do everything they need with desktop Mathematica and Workbench used solely for adding documentation pages.

Yes, there may be some projects that employ dozens of programmers with huge budgets and critical missions. Those kinds of projects are beyond my ken. They probably require a lot of 'computer science' and computer systems work, large scale debugging and validation - not to speak of good lawyers and business managers! But generally the more independent elements you have to integrate the more the concerns veer away from the core content to ancillary issues.

I believe the target audience tor Mathematica was originally scientists, engineers, mathematicians and anyone whose work contains substantial mathematics, probably mostly academics, working either singly or in small groups, and trying to build up a core of knowledge and capability in a specific area. And also wanting to communicate their work to other people in the field.

If you are such a person you might be interested in my essay on using Mathematica in that manner: A Mathematica Style.

I like to think of Mathematica not as a super graphical calculator or programming language (although it is partly those things) but as a magic piece of paper on which I am writing my material. Magic because it has memory, the ability to calculate, and the ability to transmit active routines to readers. It beats static printed papers by orders of magnitude.

As for debugging, I have always found it easy just by looking at output or inserting a few Print statements. I know this sounds primitive but whenever I've tried program supplied debugging I've found it more work than benefit. And I've developed a number of fairly large Mathematica applications, some with other persons.

Until now I was not aware of the important role of $UserBaseDirectory/Applications and did not use it. I will try that and see if my Programming Lab can work with local files there.

It's a pity (or a desaster): The Programming Lab desktop cannot save anything to any local Folder. Probably I would have to adapt your style to Wolfram cloud folders.

Sorry for the short hand. I was referring to the standard Mathematica license with the pricing for Home and Hobby.

There is some debugging functionality built-in to Mathematica, but nothing like Xcode, for example.

However, Mathematica is not your basic programming language, so to think of it as an IDE may get you off into a black hole eventually. It took me a while to realize this, but once I realized what Wolfram Language really was, I do a lot better.

Sorry for my possibly outdated American idiom.

Mathematica's design and goals are different from other languages, such as c, COBOL. FORTRAN, or even MatLab. Stephen has talked about this extensively and more knowledgeably than I can.

Tools for 'professional' development are big added, and Workbench seems to the the best solution for large scale development. There is some integration with GitHub for collaboration, but I have not used it. The Unit testing tools are useable.

In the past, I wrote significant software in c and its successors. I used Mathematica (since 1989, at least) to do the R&D and some prototyping, but the production code was all in c. Now, I am using Mathematica for exploration and what would be called experimental mathematics, and for this work, Mathematica is the best.

The point of my post was to say that if you look at Wolfram Language as another language like c, you will likely miss the point of Wolfram Language's design and goals. It took me a while to make the transition. There are tools in Xcode (for example) that I wish I had in Mathematica or Workbench, but on balance, I can get more done with less code with Wolfram Language and Mathematica than any other language I have used over the past 40+ years.

Hi --

It looks like Wolfram|One is a subscription product only, while Mathematica can be purchased outright. I have Mathematica now, with Premier Service plus, and as far as I can tell, I get all the functionality of Wolfram|One. The cost of the service contract for Mathematica is less than the annual Subscription for Wolfram|One. (I am looking at the commercial licenses only.)

I have been using Mathematica since version 1.1, before there was a service plan. I hope that the option of Premier Service Plus remains available for the foreseeable future. It provides the services and support that I need.

I can understand that the name "Mathematica" is no longer entirely descriptive of what the software can do. Changing the name may be hard from a marketing viewpoint, but I can see the value of making a change so that the software can escape the 'ghetto' in which it currently resides. As far as I can tell, Wolfram Desktop, Mathematica, and the desktop component of Wolfram|One are essentially the same. It might be useful to have the same name for these apps.

One last thing: the main marketing page for Wolfram|One has an icon showing portable devices (e.g., iPhone and iPad), but there is no reference to these devices in the rest of the marketing pages. Does this refer to the Wolfram Player, currently in beta, or does it refer to a version of Mathematica (by whatever name) that will run natively on an iPad? I remember seeing this demonstrated at a Wolfram Technology Conference. I remember that there were some issues with the first generation iPad, but the newer iPads -- especially the large one -- is much more capable.

george

Hi Murray

Mathematica with PS+ provides the same base capabilities as Wolfram|One. Desktop client, web access, and cloud resources. Obviously there are licensing differences, though, depending on the edition/plan. That dictates commercial vs. non-commercial usage, cloud storage, cloud credits, etc.

Yes. Notebook interface and the kernel.

Etc. = et cetera. There are many other limits such as the number of kernels for desktop, or the evaluation time limit on the cloud. They are listed on the pricing page - http://www.wolfram.com/wolfram-one/pricing/personal-use.php

Our Sales team could talk through your individual goals and needs to ensure you find the right product for your needs. Please email sales@wolfram.com or contact them through this form - http://www.wolfram.com/company/contact/sales/

"The only differences between Mathematica with Premier Plus Service, on the one hand, and Wolfram|One, on the other hand are with respect to licensing terms and limits (commercial vs. non-commercial use, number of kernels, evaluation time and space, storage, credits, etc.)?"

Yes, you are correct. Mathematica with Premier Service Plus is equal to W|O, assuming you are talking like editions/plans.

It is confusing and a big goal for this year is vastly simplifying it. Thank you for your feedback.

Thank you for the quick response. As I had written, I have bought Mathematica and so far have gone by Premier Service (industrial license). I definitely see benefits in using cloud access vs. Player Pro that has to be installed for every single user if I remember correctly.

What confuses me is, that you had written, that with PS+ you do not have access to Programming Lab or to Development Platform. Is there a difference in deployment options (e.g. UDS) using Mathematica Online (PS+) or can certain cloud features not be used like the Data Drop?

I agree with Murray. Wolfram needs to clarify the differences among these products. It is very confusing. Please strip away the obfuscation and find a way to clearly define each product and service and explain concisely what differentiates each from the others! I'm encouraged by Clayton's statement that Wolfram recognizes the current situation as unsatisfactory and plans to rectify it in the coming year. I hope that happens.