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Add to SafariWhen comparing Red vs Wolfram Mathematica, the Slant community recommends Red for most people. In the question“What are the best (productivity-enhancing, well-designed, and concise, rather than just popular or time-tested) programming languages?” Red is ranked 57th while Wolfram Mathematica is ranked 60th. The most important reason people chose Red is:
Other languages have complex, multi-step setups that beginners often get stuck on. Red has no installer, no setup, no dependencies*, just a single small (~1MB) command-line executable with both the compiler and repl. On Windows, you don't even have to launch executable from the command line--it has a GUI-console.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Simple toolchain
Other languages have complex, multi-step setups that beginners often get stuck on. Red has no installer, no setup, no dependencies*, just a single small (~1MB) command-line executable with both the compiler and repl. On Windows, you don't even have to launch executable from the command line--it has a GUI-console.
Pro Very simple syntax
Red syntax is a lot like Rebol. It's easier than most languages for beginners to pick up.
Pro Both low and high-level
Red has low enough access to do systems programming, but it's expressive enough for high-level scripting.
Pro Low cognitive load
Red has very simple syntax that's easy to learn. It gets out of your way and lets you think about the problem instead, enhancing productivity.
Pro Lots of functionality
Pro Built-in CPU Parallelization
Pro Very mature
Wolfram Mathematica has been around for a long time without any major changes in the basic design.
Pro Coherent API over different domains
Pro Supports units and can do much more than just maths
Other platforms severely lack this useful feature.
Pro Fully integrated symbolic processing
Pro Very powerful and fast, also possible to get for free
Cons
Con Not production ready
Red is still under development and not considered stable.
Con Still in beta
It mostly works. It's good enough for building usable applications, but some planned features are missing.
Con Unintuitive data types and strange assignment statements
Representation of data still remains highly fragmented technically and one fumbles between data types and stumbles on strange assignment statements to attempt conversions of meaning.
Con Proprietary
