November 13, 2006–Wolfram Research today announced the release of Wolfram Workbench, the state-of-the-art integrated development environment (IDE) that incorporates Mathematica technologies. Complementing Mathematica‘s uniquely powerful, high-level programming language and world-renowned features for computation, visualization, and modeling, Workbench is ideal for the development of large-scale technical solutions.
“Workbench has unlocked Mathematica‘s potential as the way to build technical software,” said Tom Wickham-Jones, director of kernel technology and lead Workbench developer. “If you’re working on technical application development, we’ve built the definitive system.” Together, Workbench and Mathematica enable the creation of innovative technical applications in areas such as engineering, science, finance, and education.
Built on Eclipse, a leading IDE platform, Workbench makes it easy for Eclipse adopters to use Mathematica for their applications. Existing Mathematica-based developers gain access to state-of-the-art development tools, resulting in more efficient project construction and increased productivity.
“Mathematica is the only system capable of spanning the development spectrum, from small to large projects,” said Conrad Wolfram, director of strategic marketing at Wolfram Research. “Workbench boosts Mathematica‘s capability for more complex projects, taking technical development into the twenty-first century, away from Fortran and its derivatives.”
Key features in Workbench enable users to:
- Group files, code, and other Mathematica resources into a single project
- Perform source code editing with syntax highlighting, error reporting, local variable coloring, and many more options
- Study code as it runs to easily detect and fix any problems
- Profile the code’s execution and develop and run tests, with an array of insightful reporting methods
- Manage multiple versions of files and access version histories
- Build and deploy Mathematica packages
Features that make Mathematica ideal for development include:
- Multi-paradigm programming that lets users program as they think, not as the language dictates
- Short, readable code for faster, simpler implementation
- The world’s most extensive computation library, with symbolic as well as numerical and graphical functionality
- Built-in connectivity to other languages and extensions
- Cutting-edge deployment options
“Workbench has quickly become an indispensable tool we wouldn’t want to live without. We can now develop both Mathematica and Java code in the same IDE and profit from the version control and build-management infrastructure we have already established around Eclipse,” said Sascha Kratky of uni software plus, a developer of custom software solutions in finance, engineering, and manufacturing.
Added Wolfram, “Mathematica has moved way beyond computer algebra to become the environment for technical software development.”
Wolfram Workbench requires Mathematica 5.2 or higher and is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux platforms. Workbench can also be used with gridMathematica, webMathematica, Mathematica Personal Grid Edition, Mathematica for the Classroom, and Mathematica for Students. It is available free to all Wolfram Research Premier Service customers, who can download it here.
Advanced training on Workbench is available from Wolfram Education Group covering core Mathematica programming concepts, including source code editing, debugging, profiling, and unit testing. A complete description of the course, including registration information, is online.More details are available at the Wolfram Workbench product website.