5 ms·

Are there any more informed folks in here that would like to discuss how "having an ISO standard" would improve Julia?

dinero_rojo 4y ago
Yeah, I was also wondering about that. My understanding is that ISO standards were necessary in the past to somewhat ensure that multiple implementations of the same language would be compatible with each other, Julia doesn't really seem to have that issue today. Would be very interested to hear of any other benefits.
- ryanobjc 4y ago
  ISO standards for programming languages have been essentially totally obsoleted for new languages. Open source is the reason: previously you'd only have proprietary implementations, so you'd need a standard to ensure they were compatible. Now the standard for rust, python, etc IS the default implementation. Bug for bug compatibility and all that.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Except there are fields where standards do matter, hence why Ferrocene is helping such effort for Rust.
adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
It would be great! We'd only be able to improve the language every 3 years and you would have to pay a few thousand dollars to make a pull request!
Moissanite 4y ago
Julia is too "trendy" in certain circles (finance bros) for a lot of scientific computing types to take it seriously and invest a lot of time into it. There are the same sort of community brigading problems that people complain about Rust for, but without the balancing effect of "this language is considered the future by many giant companies who actually have some motivation for being cautious with their choices". I first heard about Julia in about 2012, and while visibility has grown massively, I haven't seen anyone putting it into production or widespread use in any company or academic group except for where you have someone who wants to be an "influencer" trying their luck.
- warinukraine 4y ago
  > I haven't seen anyone putting it into production I keep hearing this meme. My company uses it in production.
- StefanKarpinski 4y ago
  Ah yes, nobody uses Julia in production... except these companies https://juliahub.com/case-studies/ https://juliahub.com/case-studies/ and many more—it's impossible to keep up. It's 2023, Julia was #21 on the TIOBE index at some point last year. Claiming that nobody uses Julia in production at this point is getting to be rather silly.
  - Moissanite 4y ago
    Found a few (energy and pharma) I've heard of who aren't in the already mentioned "finance bro" category, or academia - but those are singular use-cases. The fact that the list of notable use-cases is small enough to be worth compiling is, itself, telling. Edit: To be clear; when I first heard about Julia I was excited and a bit sad it had come into my awareness a bit too late for me to use in my PhD. However, since then I see it come up more and more, yet the core UX things which were regarded as "not quite as good as python" seem to persist. Some things need to change in order for the language to get over the next hump of acceptance, and I feel like a community who are very hostile to outside opinions is a major one.
    - tonyarkles 4y ago
      This one fascinated me a few months ago when I came across it: https://juliahub.com/case-studies/lincoln-labs/ https://juliahub.com/case-studies/lincoln-labs/
    - mrtesthah 4y ago
      >The fact that the list of notable use-cases is small enough to be worth compiling is, itself, telling. lol, no.
    - StefanKarpinski 4y ago
pklausler 4y ago
Be careful what you ask for. ISO standardization is probably the worst thing that's happened to Fortran.

Yeah, I was also wondering about that. My understanding is that ISO standards were necessary in the past to somewhat ensure that multiple implementations of the same language would be compatible with each other, Julia doesn't really seem to have that issue today. Would be very interested to hear of any other benefits.

ryanobjc 4y ago
ISO standards for programming languages have been essentially totally obsoleted for new languages. Open source is the reason: previously you'd only have proprietary implementations, so you'd need a standard to ensure they were compatible. Now the standard for rust, python, etc IS the default implementation. Bug for bug compatibility and all that.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Except there are fields where standards do matter, hence why Ferrocene is helping such effort for Rust.

adgjlsfhk1 4y ago

It would be great! We'd only be able to improve the language every 3 years and you would have to pay a few thousand dollars to make a pull request!

Moissanite 4y ago

Julia is too "trendy" in certain circles (finance bros) for a lot of scientific computing types to take it seriously and invest a lot of time into it. There are the same sort of community brigading problems that people complain about Rust for, but without the balancing effect of "this language is considered the future by many giant companies who actually have some motivation for being cautious with their choices". I first heard about Julia in about 2012, and while visibility has grown massively, I haven't seen anyone putting it into production or widespread use in any company or academic group except for where you have someone who wants to be an "influencer" trying their luck.

warinukraine 4y ago
> I haven't seen anyone putting it into production I keep hearing this meme. My company uses it in production.
StefanKarpinski 4y ago
Ah yes, nobody uses Julia in production... except these companies https://juliahub.com/case-studies/ https://juliahub.com/case-studies/ and many more—it's impossible to keep up. It's 2023, Julia was #21 on the TIOBE index at some point last year. Claiming that nobody uses Julia in production at this point is getting to be rather silly.
- Moissanite 4y ago
  Found a few (energy and pharma) I've heard of who aren't in the already mentioned "finance bro" category, or academia - but those are singular use-cases. The fact that the list of notable use-cases is small enough to be worth compiling is, itself, telling. Edit: To be clear; when I first heard about Julia I was excited and a bit sad it had come into my awareness a bit too late for me to use in my PhD. However, since then I see it come up more and more, yet the core UX things which were regarded as "not quite as good as python" seem to persist. Some things need to change in order for the language to get over the next hump of acceptance, and I feel like a community who are very hostile to outside opinions is a major one.
  - tonyarkles 4y ago
    This one fascinated me a few months ago when I came across it: https://juliahub.com/case-studies/lincoln-labs/ https://juliahub.com/case-studies/lincoln-labs/
  - mrtesthah 4y ago
    >The fact that the list of notable use-cases is small enough to be worth compiling is, itself, telling. lol, no.
  - StefanKarpinski 4y ago

pklausler 4y ago

Be careful what you ask for. ISO standardization is probably the worst thing that's happened to Fortran.