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xmcqdpt2yesterday at 1:07 PM0 repliesview on HN

I think in practice it's less of a programming language and more of a scripting environment. It's like excel for math. There are many more people using it to produce mathematical results (like how excel is used to produce reports and graphs) than people who use it to produce programs.

This is why its not particularly problematic that it is closed source. Most people I've worked with who use it produce mathematical results with it that are fully checkable by hand.