Must Climb The Tree To Get The Fruit?

(Photo from FreeDigitalImage ). In the development of software-development-paradigms you at least implicitly find this suggestion. In any compile-build-go cycle, architectural design, algorithm design, data-structure design,... induce the quality of your system, especially with quality features, like robustness, extendability, maintainability, ... (short, software life cycle planning). Even if you do explorative and experimental prototyping, you feel you must climb the design tree to get the fruit of good runtime software.

But there are fruits on pre-designed plants (grapes, ..), only mans-high.

If you Develop in Mathematica you inherit a lot of things, from an open architecture, link technologies, a language for all programming paradigms, especially literate programming, .. to a development environment that supports you when doing personal to large-scale-hybrid-system development (the Wolfram Workbench , for desktop-, grid- or web applications).

And it changes the development principle to Compute-Develop-Deploy. Pick the grapes from a well-designed wine-plant that you have tuned to transform the strength of your soil (terroir) into an outstanding taste (for immediate eating or wine making). Configure your plantation ...

You don't need to climb the tree all the time.

What Would Newton Do?

After the 3 Mathematica seminars for Fraunhofer Gesellschaft I thought: with over 60 institutes it carries out research in hundreds of technology fields. With this coverage a broad variety of theories, models and algorithms are found, verified and validated in Industrial Research projects. How to verify and integrate this knowledge?

Isaac Newton comes in my mind, one of the most influential men in history. I do not need to repeat the broad coverage of his ground-breaking discoveries (from fundamental laws to concrete equipment building). One of the last universal scientists? His experiments were a means of verifying (not discovering) what he already knew (from a speech about him). Or, he found a proof in days for what he knew for years. An experimental natural philosopher?

In the discussion with the Fraunhofer researchers it often turned into, "how can we combine our modeling and simulation systems with the laboratory systems?" It is about, different paradigms, system breaks and the question whether hybrid systems can work?

Yes it can, Mathematica, with its multi-language link technologies and the ability for high-level declarative task programming is the platform that can tie technologies together.

Newton WITH Mathematica. Was he then more an explorative, constructive natural philosopher?

Final In The Castle

20-Nov-09, FIT, Institute for Applied Information Technology, organized the final-of-three Mathematica 7 compact seminars.

The Fraunhofer institute pursues a user-centered approach to information and cooperation systems design. Usability and usefulness of IT are optimized in the interplay of work practice, organization, and process design.

Harald Mathis, Head of BIOMOS, Biomolecular Optical Systems, provided the most beautiful seminar room in the castle of Birlinghoven / St. Augustin. Thank You!

Due to the IT focus of most of the attendees, Oliver Ruebenkoening emphasized on the platform character of Matematica 7 and gave full explanation on the most important link technologies.

In the spirited discussion this was also the major point: how easy Mathematica can be linked to other systems, like lab systems, data analytics systems, or control systems. Mathematica's declarative programming environment is perfect for coordinating and controlling them and apply task automation.

To me, it is always impressive, sitting in the train from Frankfurt to Siegburg/Bonn, browsing through the tunnels with over 300 km per hour. A warm! sunny Nov-day and a walk through the spacious park and woods around the castle added to my excitement.

Sun IS Shining

13-Nov-09, ISE, Institute for Solar Energy Systems , Freiburg hosted the second-of-three Mathematica 7 compact seminars.

The Fraunhofer Institute develops systems, components, materials and processes in the areas of the thermal use of solar energy, solar building, solar cells, electrical power supplies, chemical energy conversion, energy storage and the rational use of energy.

Axel Brendle, Head of IT, set up a perfect seminar environment in ISE,s impressive building. Thank you!

900 persons are employed at ISE. They have access to the latest technologies for their research and ground-breaking technology development. Networked and grid-enabled Mathematica 7 is widely used in modeling and simulation.

Oliver Rübenkoenig gave his talk for over 40 researchers from 10 Fraunhofer institutes located in the southern region of Germany. He emphasized on the fact that Mathematica's technology-foundation ties into many new features in Mathematica 7 and finally WolframAlpha for application developers.

The spirited discussion showed that computing-developing and deploying applications are increasingly important in industrial research. As an example, I want to mention ITWM's world-wide released Analog Insydes .

Again, I approached Freiburg by train from Frankfurt browsing along the Schwarzwald with the vineyards of famous vintners on the foothills (like Berhard Huber, Malterdingen, and his fantastic but rare Spätburgunder "R"). Innovative as Fraunhofer, in his field. And I like to walk through Freiburg, even if I only have an hour.

I am looking forward to the seminar in St. Augustin/Schloss Birlinghoven.

Those Are The Days

6-Nov-09, Fraunhofer Institute IWS, Dresden: the first-of-three Mathematica 7 compact seminars, a joint event of Fraunhofer, Wolfram Research and my uni software plus, took place at the impressive IWS facilities.

I found it exciting, and, I believe, also the participants from ten Fraunhofer institutes.

Oliver Ruebenkoenig, Mathematica Kernel Developer, the presenter, managed to give a guided tour through the most beautiful areas of Mathematica. It is not so easy to walk through a platform that has many thousands of functions transformed into ground-breaking technologies in 2 hours; he chose a perfect balance of in-depth sessions giving full explanation on capabilities and implementations of Mathematica 7, a huge release, with overviews, always giving the link to the rich resources in the comprehensive Wolfram pages-for-users. From dynamic graphics examples to Wolfram Alpha. We had a spirited discussion with the attending Fraunhofer Researchers, from the first-viewers to the advanced mathematica users.

Andreas Kluge, IWS IT, organized the event in a great venue. It starts with the entry, with presentations of the institute's achievents and goes to a perfectly equipped seminar room. Thank you!

But I even got some extras. When I approached and left Dresden, a glistening sun made the colored leaves in the woods golden surfaces and it was the first time that I took time to enjoying a walk through the impressive Altstad and Neustadt of Dresden.

Im a very much looking forward to the next Fraunhofer Mathematica events in Freibug and St Augustin.