

To their credit, Mathematica did open up a huge technical lead in the 1990s. The Mathematica developers claim that the hierarchy afforded by the proprietary model is a better way to organize innovation. The obvious contrast is between the proprietary world of Wolfram and the open-source model of the software ecosystem that Jupyter mobilizes. The article asks why Jupyter succeed where Mathematica failed.

I’m experimenting with, and excited about, its potential as a way to write up research results. Now, I’m much more productive with Jupyter. I had to learn the hard way why so many kept their distance from Mathematica.
