Wolfram Launches Computational Document Format 167
Barence writes "Wolfram Research has launched its own document format, which it claims is 'as everyday as a document, but as interactive as an app.' The Computational Document Format (CDF) allows authors to embed interactive charts, diagrams and graphics into their documents, allowing readers to adjust variables to see how increasing a price affects profits, for example, or display different segments of a brain scan. Wolfram aims to make the format easy enough for non-programmers to use, based on the linguistic commands used in its search engine. '[Currently] anyone who can make an Excel macro should easily be able to make interactivity for CDF,' said Conrad Wolfram. 'Where I'd like to get is that anyone who can make an Excel chart can make interactivity in CDFs.'"
sounds awesome! (Score:3)
but... does it have a blink tag?
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And a volume control that defaults to 11.
Open format (Score:3)
From the website: Wolfram currently provides the CDF specification as a public format, meaning it is publicly available, openly documented, and natively unencrypted.
Let's hope it stays open.
Re:Open format (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't touch it without an assignment of copyright to a community body and a patent indemnification.
Wolfram (Score:2)
Not sure how many Mathematica cluster exist, but Sage has started eating their server side market. Sage's various backends are just way better designed for really intensive computational work, while Sage & Cython reduce the learning curve for each.
I hear that Wolfram's salaries kinda suck too, btw.
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In most of the world "dataformats" can neither be copyrighted nor patented ...
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Read the FAQ.
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Oops, sorry, I replied to soon. It's not in the FAQ.
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I've met some of the people who make Excel charts (Score:3)
I think he greatly overestimates them.
But I've also made some pretty cool Excel charts, so this will probably be a neat tool for people who can actually use it to its full potential.
Relevant XKCD (Score:2)
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Sure, it's called HTML (with a little help from CSS and Javascript).
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Uh, yes, just use one of the libraries designed for that, like gRaphael or Highcharts.
Sure, the editor may be nice for non-programmers, but they could've just exported to HTML/JS instead of creating yet another format that requires yet another viewer, which probably won't be available for many platforms.
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I suppose they could have exported to HTML and JS, yes. But isn't that getting to, basically, a PDF vs. word-processor-format (whether open or MS's or word perfect....) issue? Perhaps thise format allows you to control better what it looks like on the other side, without constantly monitoring what browsers and HTML standards are doing...
I don't know. Is it totally useful, the best thing since UNIX? No. But I don't think it's "just another standard" that does what everything else does. It seems like it
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HTML5 can do it, no?
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That's like saying that you don't need RTF, you should use C instead.
(and (should (instead (you (use lisp)))) (true that))
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HTML5 can do it, no?
Oh yes. I'm sure, much like string theory, that one of the billions of possible HTML5s out there in the "HTML 5 landscape" might one day be proven to possibly be able to do anything you might want to be able to do. However the odds of that particular HTML 5 variant existing in our parallel universe are vanishingly small.
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HTML5 can do it, no?
Oh yes. I'm sure, much like string theory, that one of the billions of possible HTML5s out there in the "HTML 5 landscape" might one day be proven to possibly be able to do anything you might want to be able to do. However the odds of that particular HTML 5 variant existing in our parallel universe are vanishingly small.
Such a pity that it went that way. It could have been so beautiful.
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From what I read, it looks like they want to do more than *just* interactive graphs... yes, it's possible to do it in html5. On the other hand, it seems harder to control how it looks when you're doing javascript (and I hope you don't have noscript installed...), when you have to deal with whether the person is going to be using IE as opposed to Firefox, all those sorts of things web people run into all the time. Still.
It seems like this is a PDF vs. *insert document format here, like .doc, .rt, .txt, etc
I wonder... (Score:2)
Was there any thought whatsoever in terms of security when they developed this format? A document that can embed other objects sounds like an excellent method for distributing malware, etc.
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Conrad?! (Score:2)
Power without Wisdom (Score:2)
For the same Reason Excel and Powerpoint aren't real analysis tools I expect many people to abuse this tool to prove the wrong things.
Or like the Powerpoint Space Shuttle Foam issue, inadvertantly give the wrong message because they don't know how to convey what they mean to get across.
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For the same Reason Excel and Powerpoint aren't real analysis tools I expect many people to abuse this tool to prove the wrong things.
If you think any "real analysis tool" that is used by a human being magically provides you with totally impartial and entirely accurate information you're dreaming.
Why "Excel" chart? (Score:2)
Most people have no clue how to create a chart that accurately and cleanly shows what they want it to show (Edward Tufte excepted, of course). Frankly, Excel misleads people and directs them into terrible designs or, even worse, into false designs (think of using a "line chart" when what's needed is lines in a "scatterplot."
I sure hope Wolfram can come up with a much *better* way to generate proper charts than Microsoft ever has.
"anyone who can make an Excel macro" (Score:2)
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That struck me too. Most user have no clue what a macro is, let alone how to make one.
That's OK, it's just more work for smug programmers to take control of in case the plebs dare to use their computers without getting a computer science degree first.
Wait for third-party tools (Score:3)
From TFA:
Re:Wait for third-party tools (Score:5, Informative)
It gets worse. From the EULA:
Certain functionality in the Product may require the Software to access collections of data available through external servers. WRI makes no warranty that access to such data will be uninterrupted or that the data itself will be error free. WRI reserves the right to restrict access to, add, update, modify, or remove collections of data based on availability, Your service subscription, or otherwise at WRI's discretion.
So once they get enough suckers signed up, they can make it a pay service.
Re:Wait for third-party tools (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, they seem to be abusing the term "free" and "public" in a manner that I don't think most people would expect. From the licensing page:
And that asterisk?
Which looks suspiciously like their "free public format" is, in fact, closed and proprietary.
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Good lord. "Your CDFs" - really? Or do they actually belong to Wolfram?
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Which looks suspiciously like their "free public format" is, in fact, closed and proprietary.
I think "open and encumbered" is the description you're looking for.
I actually read about a quarter of "A New Kind of Science" and still can't believe that Wolfram doesn't get non-zero-sum games after all that.
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You do realize that if you distribute binaries that are GPLed that you have to provide the source as well, right. These aren't so much documents as they are programs.
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No, it isn't. It would be like MS saying that you can't charge people for copies of your work or prevent you from redistributing them. This is more or less precisely what the GPL does. It is a bit silly to attach it to a file format, but it's pretty hypocritical for folks that believe in the GPL to suggest that this is some sort of massive invasion of property rights.
And companies do do that from time to time. Autodesk brands things created within some versions of their programs so that they label drawings
Interesting idea (Score:2)
My initial thought was 'but what would CDF provide that a spreadsheet can't?"
As it turns out the Wolfram website has some interesting examples. For example the user can drag a slider to change an input value and see the result in graphs, or use the same method to change a photo (using filters).
I see some potential applications in my field (user manuals for complex machines).
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A couple of lines of framework enhanced Javascript can do the same. Why wouldn't they write an editor that exports to HTML/JS? Oh right, that would make it actually open, and not locked in to their viewer. Nevermind.
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can you type in different initial conditions and numerically (heck, symbolically!) solve a system of PDE's
Nope, at least for the 'type in' part:
All interactive content must be generated with the Manipulate command and may only use mouse-driven elements, such as Slider, Locator, Checkbox, PopupMenu, etc.
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The problem is the "symbolically" part.
CDF? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
They have to take the same acronym as a 20+ year old file format for storing numbers [nasa.gov]?
It's almost like they didn't bother putting the term 'CDF file [google.com]' into a search engine to see if anyone [microsoft.com] else [w3.org] was using that acronym already for a file extension [filext.com]. (of course, w3 even used it twice [w3.org])
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Have you considered that pretty much every basic three letter file extension that makes any sense has already been used at some point in time somewhere? There is no real authority as to who "owns" an extension, only a general consensus.
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You're assuming malice. But the most likely thing is that they used Wolfram Alpha [wolframalpha.com] to search for "CDF" instead of using Google or Ixquick. ;)
Similar cluelessness abounds in their comparison chart which claims e.g. that HTML5 is incapable of a "dynamic document hierarchy" while "Readers can dynamically open and close chapters and sections in CDF documents. CDF also supports hierarchical, tab, slide, flip, opener, and other document organizations."
Sounds good but... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about MathCAD? (Score:2)
As far as I know, MathCAD can do all this already. It's not an open source format, I guess, but the trick is not as much in encoding the formulas but in solving them in real time.
OpenDoc? (Score:2)
It sounds like something between Excel and OpenDoc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDoc, http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?OpenDoc [c2.com]).
Requires Mathematica (Score:3)
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But if it's an open format, then anyone can create their own system for creating the documents, can't they?
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But if it's an open format, then anyone can create their own system for creating the documents, can't they?
And in the same way, there's nothing to prevent you from writing an open source equivalent to Mathematica anyway.
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Alsp, CDF Player is a 101 mb download - just for a viewer; looks like a lot of bloat to me.
Apparently, it's also a glorified calculator with the Mathematica engine under the hood if it does what they claim.
Security (Score:2)
And virus, bot, and trojan makers the world over rejoice at the new opportunities for exploits! This looks like it will be a bitch to make secure. On the other hand, it also does look like it could be pretty cool.
Also, oblig xkcd [xkcd.com].
arggh... (Score:4, Informative)
I don't like how Wolfram use existing formats. How hyperlinking graphics from Wolfram break, and so on. Don't seems fair players on the internet.
Creating a new file format? cool. Where is the extensive documentation site online? ... what is this, a formulary to enter my data? WTF?, This smell like a propietery format to solve his problem: Wolfram don't want to play by the internet rules, don't want people from hotlinking his graphics, and stuff, so don't want to use GIF and PNG. Want internet to change to adapt to thenselves.
I think I say here DO NOT WANT.
I don't trust Wolfram Alpha (Score:2)
Not when they cannot perform simple geometrical calculations.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=triangle+with+sides+0.4592+meters%2C+0.6+meters%2C+0.6+meters [wolframalpha.com]
180 degrees, not 181, should be the sum of all internal angles.
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Are you sure your screen is flat?
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I don't use Wolfram, but, come on. The interior angle sum is listed correctly directly beneath the very numbers you totaled.
Also: Each degree is displayed using only 2 significant digits. 181 has 3 significant digits (1.81e2). thus when you added you forgot to round the the solution to the proper number of significant digits (two), giving 1.8e2 or 180 degrees.
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How did you get through school without learning about significant digits?
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When I was in school the term "significant digits" certainly was not taught ...
Does it really make sense in non computer science at all?
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Um, yes, absolutely. In fact, significant digits are more applicable in physical science than computer science. Sig figs exist to help us estimate the precision of a measurement, and carry that precision through a calculation. Students should be familiar with sig figs around the time they're asked to calculate simple quantities like density. That's around middle school.
In comp sci, I'm not sure when you'd want to use sig figs. Digital data is usually absolutely precise. There's no error when measurin
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Well, after your post and my answer to some further answer, it seems I dont really get what significant figures are.
Can you explain it in 3 sentences?
Right now it seems to me it is a nonsense american invention, lol.
How can a 0.00003 and 0.07000 have different significant digits if they are not represented in a computer memory?
Digital data is usually absolutely precise. That depends on the way how it is represented. Just look at jpgs ... no I don't want to go into the real issues with floats and doubles as
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How can a 0.00003 and 0.07000 have different significant digits if they are not represented in a computer memory?
It's a convention that roughly estimates precision. If you measure a quantity, say 0.00003 grams, how precise is that? The actual value could be anywhere from .000025 to .0000349999, or .00003 +/- 16%
Consider .07000 on the other hand. You know that the actual value is between .069995 and .0700049999. That's .07000 +/- .007%. Much more precise.
This is counter intuitive because they are both e
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In fact I did not get what you are about.
For me that is "statistical errors" and rounding.
What do multiply math examples have to do with significant digits? Well, looking at the other threads discussing with me about it ;D
In fact you described pretty trivial rounding problems, still no idea what the term "significant digits, figures" is meaning in this context. Perhaps you only mean "rounding" and misnome it as "significant digits"?
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When I was in school the term "significant digits" certainly was not taught ...
I think you might have just missed it.
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Your explanation has nothing to do with significant figures.
If I write: 1.233456e-03 then obviously every digit is significant, or I had not written it (albeit the formatting is nonsense).
Also your point about the 1.00000000 inch segment does not make any sense at all, as it is the same as 1.0.
The difference comes if you want to distinguish 1.00000001 from 1.0.
And as i said before: in school (that means before university) that topic is not mentioned as we (as we germans) use numbers as they are in ordinary
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Sorry, but you fail to understand how different the rest of the world is and what education means.
If I want a thing as you describe I specify as follows:
I need a 1 inch item accurate in 0.00000001 (however that unit is called).
Your wording from here, I quote:
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As I said before: this is not physics 101. ... it is in no way any engineering practice. ... but that is common sense, and is not taught as "significant digits" in school, why should it?
It is a completely made up internet myth.
While your words "make sense" as in the sense of "if we would agree on this terminology, we would both understand, what it means"
My point exactly is the "useless" argument as you made it
As I said before, no one in the real engineering world is using a number like "1.000000000" to indi
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Not when they cannot perform simple geometrical calculations.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=triangle+with+sides+0.4592+meters%2C+0.6+meters%2C+0.6+meters [wolframalpha.com]
180 degrees, not 181, should be the sum of all internal angles.
Just turn in your geek card.
Please show us how you get any triangle with either more or less than 180 degrees as the sum of all internal angles.
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68+68+45=??
Despite it saying 180, the math of the numbers it initially gives works out to 181.
This thing, plain and simple, is not giving a 100% correct answer on what it displays.
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68+68+45=??
Despite it saying 180, the math of the numbers it initially gives works out to 181.
This thing, plain and simple, is not giving a 100% correct answer on what it displays.
If you look at that page there is am "approximately equal sign" next to the 68, 68 and 45. Obviously the figures are rounded. If you genuinely don't understand this, you should sue whatever school you went to for failing to educate you properly.
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It says 180 when I clicked the link.
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Not when they cannot perform simple geometrical calculations.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=triangle+with+sides+0.4592+meters%2C+0.6+meters%2C+0.6+meters [wolframalpha.com]
180 degrees, not 181, should be the sum of all internal angles.
Heard of rounding?!?!
What's new here? (Score:4, Interesting)
All of Matematica, Maple, and MathCAD have had their own worksheet/document formats since the mid-90s at least. They have gone through many incarnations but I believe all of them now support embedding code, graphics, marked-up text, etc. Maple's Document format certainly does.
Exactly what is new about this, other than a new name and, well, further grist for Stephen Wolfram's publicity mill?
Is the idea simply to have a thin-client reader and offload most of the computation to remote servers? Because if so then that is the innovation, not some new document format.
Less user enablement is what we need (Score:3)
I can't stand the monstrosities they try to create using Word and Excel today... don't give them even more power... please
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OK... I printed the .cdf you sent (Score:2)
Nothing new done, no new goal (Score:2)
HTML+J
Mathematica rules, CDF drools (Score:2)
Can I remove the welcome screen, toolbar, or watermark logo I see when opening CDFs in CDF Player or viewing CDFs online with the web browser plugin?
The presence of Wolfram branding is part of the FreeCDF licensing terms...
They've got to be kidding if they expect anyone to make serious use of an 'open' format that requires a proprietary player with advertising all over it. Compare with PDF, which is not 'free' but at least seamlessly operates with, say LaTeX.
no mathreader any more? (Score:2)
i tried to find mathreader today, but i endend up on a broken page. I downloaded the CDF viewer and it did not work (ubuntu 11.04)
no thanks (Score:2)
It requires Mathematica 8 (very expensive for non-students) to create such a document. So I doubt it is going to be real popular.
Another Excellent Product From... (Score:2)
Wolfram and Heart... providing all of your demonic document format needs.
no viruses, just sales (Score:2, Troll)
the embedded language is relatively simple and based on Mathematica 8. It doesn't appear to provided system functionality like ActiveX.
It seems obvious that this "free" CDF thing is used to drive sales of Mathematica, because the only way to compose these documents is to run their rather expensive software ($2500 for a single user commercial license). The player is free though, but honestly I don't see why there needs to be a player at all. Why can't it just export as Flash and HTML5?
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With Wolfram? I can see the HTML5 export happening once adoption takes off.
As for flash? I can see that happening when hell freezes over, which I'm fine with. I'd rather have a player made by them than by Adobe.
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practically I don't see my co-workers being easily convinced to install the Wolfram player.
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With Wolfram? I can see the HTML5 export happening once adoption takes off.
Of course, by that time Wolfram will have invented HTML5 himself using cellular automata.
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the embedded language is relatively simple and based on Mathematica 8. It doesn't appear to provided system functionality like ActiveX.
It seems obvious that this "free" CDF thing is used to drive sales of Mathematica, because the only way to compose these documents is to run their rather expensive software ($2500 for a single user commercial license). The player is free though, but honestly I don't see why there needs to be a player at all. Why can't it just export as Flash and HTML5?
No doubt it's meant to, at least in part, drive sales of Mathematica. But why quote the commercial price? If you are using it commercially, the price is generally worth it. However, Wolfram has had student pricing pretty much forever, and even has had for over a year now a "Home Edition" for $295. Not cheap, but for what it is, it's a great price.
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But why quote the commercial price?
Because the obvious use for CDF is at work as part of a presentation to help a group understand the impact of some complex data. I might want to load some data in it, for performance metrics of various processors my company has created. And maybe some of the metrics of key competitors. And dump in some other information, like costs, typical time to market, or whatever other crap you can jam in there. Then juggle the settings and start stuffing it into some powerpoint slides. Or even better. share this compl
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Isn't this pretty much what Adobe did with PDFs.... the reader was free but you had to pay for the writer. Then they enhanced it by adding scripting for interactivity.... and we all know how secure PDFs are.
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If the scripting language doesn't have any access to external data, what sort of attack vector could there be?
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sigh. I won't even like to the article, but to a fellow /.er who has:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2341450&cid=36836046 [slashdot.org]
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I loved MathCAD. Used to use it for a lot of college coursework, back in my Mac days. Wasn't great for word processing or DTP kinds of stuff though, just for calculating and annotating and graphing the calculations. MathCAD objects can be inserted in Word documents now? That sounds awesome.