Principles of Wolfram Language

Principle of Wolfram Language Syntax

• Everything is a Expression.
• Expression is either an atom, or a list of atoms in the form a[b, c etc], arbitrarily nested.
• Atom is a number e.g. 3.4, a Symbol x, string "cat", or special character e.g. \[Pi].
• There are many short syntax for function or function call. For example: List[1,2,3] can be written as {1,2,3}, and Set[x,2] can be written as x=2, and Plus[1,2] can be written as 1+2. WolframEngine transform any short syntax to the fully nested form a[b, c etc] internally before computation. [see WolframLang Syntax/Operators]

• WolframLang code is just a sequence of expressions, practically just function calls. Knowing what function to call is the essence of coding WolframLang. [see WolframLang: List Functions, Find Function]

How Does Wolfram Language Do Computation

There are 2 ways WolframLang does computation.

• Function call. Either builtin or user defined. For example, Plus[3, 2], Sin[3], Range[5], If[3 > 2, "yes", "no"]
• Syntactical transformation by pattern matching and replacement. (aka term rewriting system)