Package name: MathLink vs. WSTP?

[stevengj]

MathLink seems to be deprecated nowadays compared to the WSTP interface. Do you have any comments on why you chose MathLink over WSTP?

cc: @simonbyrne, @rpestourie

[simonbyrne]

I think this package predates WSTP (WSTP is the updated & renamed MathLink for Mathematica 10).

Honestly, it probably makes sense to create a new package: I'll contribute where I can, but I'm leaving UCL soon, so will lose access to the institutional site licence (and I don't use it enough to justify purchasing a personal copy).

[simonbyrne]

Actually, from what I can tell, MathLink and WSTP are identical, other than the prefixes used. So it probably makes sense to keep using MathLink in order to support older versions (or make prefix flexible).

[stevengj]

That's good to hear; it would be a pain to do something new from scratch. I wonder why they renamed it?

[simonbyrne]

I assume it was so that it has the word "Wolfram" in it.

(they also renamed the Mathematica language to "Wolfram Language" in v10)

[MikeInnes]

Yeah, WSTP wasn't around at all when I wrote this and I'd bet money that it's just a trivial rename. Presumably they'll keep supporting the ML* functions as aliases in which case it's a lot easier (especially for the sake of backwards compatibility) to keep things as they are.

[simonbyrne]

I think we can close this, at least until the MathLink interface is deprecated.

[simonbyrne]

Also, for what its worth, WSTP isn't included on the raspberry pi, whereas mathlink is.

[simonbyrne]

It should be possible to make it work with either WSTP or MathLink: the easiest option might be to check which symbols exist in the dynamic library.

The other question is whether we should rename the package: one candidate is WSTP.jl, however The Julia package naming guidelines suggest avoiding acronyms. Another option is WolframEngine.jl?

[pablosanjose]

-1 to WSTP.jl (discoverability would suffer greatly, I think)
+1 to WolframEngine.jl

[MikeInnes]

Both MathLink and WSTP refer to the implementation rather than the purpose of the package (which made some sense when Mathematica.jl existed as a separate package on top of this, but no longer).

I'd prefer Mathematica.jl; that's the more recognisable name, and people can figure out that it also works with Wolfram Engine, even if that's not technically mathematica any more.

[simonbyrne]

At the moment, I am still planning on keeping this package as minimal as possible: link handling, representation of WExprs, put/get for Julia numeric types, basic evaluation, etc.

[MasonProtter]

What if we called it something like WolframLink.jl? I think that'd most accurately reflect what it is without having to use an undiscoverable name like WSTP.jl?

Mathematica.jl is perhaps good enough, but I don't think this gives access to any of the features that actually differentiates Mathematica from the Wolfram Engine.