Seems like everyone's misunderstanding my sentiment--now that I look back, I was pretty unclear.
I'm not arguing that Mathematica is too expensive. I think it's worth the money and more for math/science/engineering work. I was glad to pay up because it fills that niche for me.
My beef is with the suggestion that it should be used for general purpose work, like scripting. I believe that if people need advanced math features, Mathematica is extraordinary. But dropping $295 for a proprietary system as a replacement for Ruby or Java?
I'm not arguing that Mathematica is too expensive. I think it's worth the money and more for math/science/engineering work. I was glad to pay up because it fills that niche for me.
My beef is with the suggestion that it should be used for general purpose work, like scripting. I believe that if people need advanced math features, Mathematica is extraordinary. But dropping $295 for a proprietary system as a replacement for Ruby or Java?