Because apparently you are writing a book about Julia. I assume people who write books about a language which are also in vogue in the scientific community, they are aware of the eco-system of said community. Mathematica is not exactly a new kid on the block.
The answer is that I did not know, and that’s why I asked. Mathematica is not a big part of the scientific research world as far as I’m aware. I don’t know anyone who uses it in physics research, for example. The last time I played around with Mathematica was in graduate school before Linux existed, when closed source and proprietary solutions were the norm. Back then I don‘t think there was anything like the Wolfram Language independent of the Mathematica product. So when I heard that this language now existed, I wondered if it was open and, therefore, something that might be interesting to use in research. From your tone I suspect that you won’t believe any of this. I’ll leave it up to your fevered imagination to divine how much I care about that.
