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In my opinion, there is no such thing as a "general application". What about generating static websites? Is that a "general application"? Is TTFX a big issue th
by jakobnissen 4y ago
In my opinion, there is no such thing as a "general application". What about generating static websites? Is that a "general application"? Is TTFX a big issue there? Currently, the Julia package Franklin.jl takes around 15 seconds to create the website the first time (changes in the source code update the page in less than one second). I'd argue no.
What about Julia to produce generative art? Is TTFX an issue there? Etc. If "general applications" means _all possible applications_, then I'm not sure any language is suitable for general applications.
Julia has weaknesses which limits what it's good at. Right now I think it has more weaknesses than other languages. Some of these limits will hopefully be removed or reduced in the future. But fundamentally, I don't see Julia as some kind of domain specific or niche language. Just like any language, it just has its own set of tradeoffs.
- skohan 4y agoYeah I would agree the use cases you mentioned are probably fine for Julia as well. I could be more precise and say that Julia is not relevant for performance-relevant applications. The problem with ignoring performance is, many applications can become a dependency of a performance relevant application even if that was not the original intent.
- cjalmeida 4y agoWe recently used Julia to solve (correctly) a super complex scheduling problem for a major airline. Our budget was 5min, Python would get not even close to a solution in that time. The tool is being actively used in production. Julia is not not only fine, but my go to language for performance problems.
- skohan 4y agoOk but comparing with Python is like a worst-case scenario, and long running tasks would amortize Julia’s performance issues. There are a great many use-cases/language comparisons you could find where Julia would be the worse performing language.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- DNF2 4y agoYou seem to confuse performance and latency. High performance is Julia's main selling point. Latency is its Achilles heel. It's being very actively worked on however.
- skohan 4y agoLatency is a type of performance. For instance if you have even a few milliseconds latency it's relevant in terms of UI performance.
- DNF2 4y agoThen you should specify. You made a blanket statement about performance, while using the least commonly considered type. If you just say 'performance', most people will assume you mean throughput.