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At first glance Julia looks excellent. Glad to see money going to a project that makes sense :) I guess Python is "the competition" so here's my thoughts on th
by kriro 11y ago
At first glance Julia looks excellent. Glad to see money going to a project that makes sense :)
I guess Python is "the competition" so here's my thoughts on that competition (from knowing fairly little about Julia). From my limited experience Python is actually easy enough to grasp for most scientists without a programming background so I'm not sure the "easier" argument is what should be focused on.
At the "lower end of the spectrum" (that is not super hard data crunching and/or less affinity for programming) there's social sciences, psychology, marketing, economics etc. and they use a variety of higher level tools (the pesky SPSS) for their routine tasks and are usually willing to invest time for more data crunchy activities (often R but Python is common as well in say economics with data-crunchy models).
The big attraction of Python (for me) is that you don't just get the data crunching but also the boilerplate you'll need around it (data normalization, stroing stuff in databases and getting it out, turning your models into simple web-apps etc.)
+ IPython notebook and distributions like anaconda make setup and quick experimention fairly simple.
If I were to give advice to someone entering science I'd certainly suggest "learn python".
However...the more languages we have the better, MATLAB makes me cringe for multiple reasons. Go Julia :D
- maxerickson 11y agoIPython notebooks have gone multi language: https://jupyter.org/ https://jupyter.org/ https://blog.jupyter.org/2015/04/15/the-big-split/ https://blog.jupyter.org/2015/04/15/the-big-split/ I think Julia was one of the early alternate languages.
- julienchastang 11y agoOut of curiosity, can you have multiple languages in one notebook with the output of one cell, in say Python, be input for a second cell in Julia or R? (emacs org-Babel allows for this -- a feature I use often.)
- maxerickson 11y agoI just googled it, I don't know a lot about Jupyter, but yes: http://blog.dominodatalab.com/lesser-known-ways-of-using-notebooks/ http://blog.dominodatalab.com/lesser-known-ways-of-using-not... http://ipython.readthedocs.org/en/stable/interactive/magics.html#cell-magics http://ipython.readthedocs.org/en/stable/interactive/magics....
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ngoldbaum 11y agoYes, most easily through so-called "cell magics".
- stared 11y agoTo some extent - yes. E.g. you can run R in a Python notebook; just each R cell need to be started with '%%R' (and one need to load rpy2). See e.g. https://github.com/DELabUW/szkola-letnia-2015/blob/master/zajecia/deser_r_ggplot.ipynb https://github.com/DELabUW/szkola-letnia-2015/blob/master/za...
- kiriliponi 11y agoBeaker notebook [1] seems to do precisely that, though I have yet to use it in practice. [1] http://beakernotebook.com/index http://beakernotebook.com/index
- idunning 11y agoIndeed, the "Ju" in "Jupyter" is for Julia!
- vanderZwan 11y agoHave you tried https://www.juliabox.org/ https://www.juliabox.org/ yet?
- ViralBShah 11y agoI would like to point out that the Julia and Python communities have a pretty good relationship. We have given talks at several Python conferences, and there is great interoperability as well.
- frik 11y agoIPython notebook nowadays supports Julia, R, etc and has been renamed: https://jupyter.org/ https://jupyter.org/ Python fans are a bit unnerving, they seem to be more vocal among the similar alternatives R, Octave/Matlab, SPSS. Some people simply prefer Julia for its nice language syntax and its native raw speed, deal with it.
- stdbrouw 11y ago> Python fans are a bit unnerving, they seem to be more vocal among the similar alternatives R, Octave/Matlab, SPSS It'd be difficult to list four languages that are more different than those in your list. There's some overlap in the tasks each is suited for, but they're hardly alternatives.
- TheLogothete 11y agoFrom my experience trying to argue your point, python people are the ones who most often refuse to understand it.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- kkkkdddd 11y ago> However...the more languages we have the better, MATLAB makes me cringe for multiple reasons. I didn't want to get into this holywar, but god darn it, what kind of half-assed language uses the notation C = A.dot(B) for C = A * B? It's as if the authors of Numpy took just enough classes of Linear Algebra 101 to learn about dot products, and then dropped out of college to pursue their glamorous careers developing their Matlab knockoff.
- math_and_stuff 11y agoThe original creator of numpy (Travis Oliphant) was a professor working in scientific computing. And numpy is a library, not a language. Thank you for your constructive criticism of freely distributed gifts to the community.
- superbatfish 11y agoTrying to come up with an appropriate response to your comment reminded me of this: http://goo.gl/KqXXDV http://goo.gl/KqXXDV