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I don't know if you genuinely want feedback... But I'll share my very short experience. I tried Julia one time a few years back. I'll be honest, I didn't put in

by geokon 3y ago

I don't know if you genuinely want feedback... But I'll share my very short experience. I tried Julia one time a few years back. I'll be honest, I didn't put in a lot of effort into (but nor will most potential Matlab converts - bc people are busy and have stuff to do) It's got a frustrating "not fun" on-boarding. ie. the number of minutes from downloading "Julia" to getting cool satisfying results 1. It not a calculator on steroids like Matlab. It doesn't have one main open source IDE like Octave/Rstudio that you can drop in and play around in (see plots docs repl workspace) 2. The default language is more like a "proper programming language". To even make a basic plot you need to import one of a dozen plotting libraries (which requires learning how libraries and importing works - boring ..) and how is someone just getting started to decide which one..? I don't need that analysis paralysis when I'm just getting started 3. Documentation .. Well it's very hard to compete with Matlab here - but the website is not as confidence inducing. The landing page is a wall of text: https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/ https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/ Tbh, from the subsequent manual listing it's not even clear it's a math-focused programming language . It's talking about constructors, data types, ffi, stack traces, networking etc etc.

sundarurfriend 3y ago
> 1. It doesn't have one main open source IDE like Octave/Rstudio that you can drop in and play around in. (you can see plots docs repl workspace) It's looking like VS Code (julia-vscode.org) will be the equivalent, and it's gotten a good chunk of the way towards that - "plots docs repl" are all existing features and pretty easy to use. The docs [1] show a "Workspace" feature too. There's also some integration with tools like JET.jl [2] so that there's in-editor code analysis and diagnostics. (And the extension works in VS Codium as well, so you can go completely FOSS if that's your wish.) [1] https://www.julia-vscode.org/docs/stable/userguide/grid/ https://www.julia-vscode.org/docs/stable/userguide/grid/ [2] https://aviatesk.github.io/JET.jl/stable/ https://aviatesk.github.io/JET.jl/stable/
zorked 3y ago
VS Code supports Julia well, both plain and in Jupyter notebooks.
markkitti 3y ago
A lot has changed in a few years. This release is a big one. 1. I run Julia on my smartphone and often use it as calculator. 2. You typically only need Plots.jl for most needs. See https://docs.juliaplots.org/stable/ https://docs.juliaplots.org/stable/ 3. See https://juliaacademy.com https://juliaacademy.com Another alternative environment are Pluto notebooks. It's reactive like a spreadsheet, but easy to use in your browser. https://featured.plutojl.org/ https://featured.plutojl.org/ I have several users without much coding experience using Pluto notebooks just to generate plots from CSV files. They are finding the combination of a web based interface, reactive UI, and fast execution easier to use than a MATLAB Live script.
- freilanzer 3y ago
  > 1. I run Julia on my smartphone and often use it as calculator. How?
  - geokon 3y ago
    You could probably run Termux and launch a REPL from the command line?
    - cookieperson 3y ago
      Great way to eat a quarter gig of RAM before doing anything on a small compute device...
      - jrockway 3y ago
        Probably less RAM than the average browser tab uses. 250MB of RAM? I've forgotten how to count that low. Today's smartphone has higher specs than my $10,000 workstation from 10 years ago.
        cookieperson 3y ago
        Compare the Julia repls memory consumption and resources used vs python for using it as a calculator. Looking at orders of magnitude in different resources consumed and time to first anything especially on a computer restrained device...Better yet do the same as the unix tool BC. I am very much aware of when I start tossing quarter to half gbs of RAM on small devices to do things like 1+1=2... Leave two or three of those open by being lazy/forgetful and yea there goes a huge chunk of RAM. To be fair I also don't spend thousands of dollars on the latest phones...
stellalo 3y ago
> Tbh, from the subsequent manual listing it's not even clear it's a math-focused programming language It’s true that the majority of the Julia community comes from a scientific or engineering background, and this is reflected in the package ecosystem and some of the “embedded” language features for technical computing. However I feel like stressing Julia as a “technical language” any more than it currently is may scare away people that may want to use it for other purposes, such as a general purpose scripting language. Now more than ever before, with the improved code caching in 1.9, Julia lends itself perfectly for interactive usage and day-to-day scripting.
- goerz 3y ago
  I’m a heavy Julia user, and I love the language, but I really wouldn’t recommend it as a “general purpose scripting language”. Pushing the idea that it is will only lead to disappointment in new users. Julia is very much a language for scientific computing, in the broadest sense.
vfclists 3y ago
What is the relevance of a review of the language tried one time a few years back? Today is not a few years back. No one genuinely wants a review of the product from a few years back if they are seriously considering the language today. Julia is not Lisp or Scheme.

by geokon 3y ago

sundarurfriend 3y ago

> 1. It doesn't have one main open source IDE like Octave/Rstudio that you can drop in and play around in. (you can see plots docs repl workspace) It's looking like VS Code (julia-vscode.org) will be the equivalent, and it's gotten a good chunk of the way towards that - "plots docs repl" are all existing features and pretty easy to use. The docs [1] show a "Workspace" feature too. There's also some integration with tools like JET.jl [2] so that there's in-editor code analysis and diagnostics. (And the extension works in VS Codium as well, so you can go completely FOSS if that's your wish.) [1] https://www.julia-vscode.org/docs/stable/userguide/grid/ https://www.julia-vscode.org/docs/stable/userguide/grid/ [2] https://aviatesk.github.io/JET.jl/stable/ https://aviatesk.github.io/JET.jl/stable/

zorked 3y ago

VS Code supports Julia well, both plain and in Jupyter notebooks.

markkitti 3y ago

A lot has changed in a few years. This release is a big one. 1. I run Julia on my smartphone and often use it as calculator. 2. You typically only need Plots.jl for most needs. See https://docs.juliaplots.org/stable/ https://docs.juliaplots.org/stable/ 3. See https://juliaacademy.com https://juliaacademy.com Another alternative environment are Pluto notebooks. It's reactive like a spreadsheet, but easy to use in your browser. https://featured.plutojl.org/ https://featured.plutojl.org/ I have several users without much coding experience using Pluto notebooks just to generate plots from CSV files. They are finding the combination of a web based interface, reactive UI, and fast execution easier to use than a MATLAB Live script.

freilanzer 3y ago
> 1. I run Julia on my smartphone and often use it as calculator. How?
- geokon 3y ago
  You could probably run Termux and launch a REPL from the command line?
  - cookieperson 3y ago
    Great way to eat a quarter gig of RAM before doing anything on a small compute device...
    - jrockway 3y ago
      Probably less RAM than the average browser tab uses. 250MB of RAM? I've forgotten how to count that low. Today's smartphone has higher specs than my $10,000 workstation from 10 years ago.
      - cookieperson 3y ago
        Compare the Julia repls memory consumption and resources used vs python for using it as a calculator. Looking at orders of magnitude in different resources consumed and time to first anything especially on a computer restrained device...Better yet do the same as the unix tool BC. I am very much aware of when I start tossing quarter to half gbs of RAM on small devices to do things like 1+1=2... Leave two or three of those open by being lazy/forgetful and yea there goes a huge chunk of RAM. To be fair I also don't spend thousands of dollars on the latest phones...

stellalo 3y ago

> Tbh, from the subsequent manual listing it's not even clear it's a math-focused programming language It’s true that the majority of the Julia community comes from a scientific or engineering background, and this is reflected in the package ecosystem and some of the “embedded” language features for technical computing. However I feel like stressing Julia as a “technical language” any more than it currently is may scare away people that may want to use it for other purposes, such as a general purpose scripting language. Now more than ever before, with the improved code caching in 1.9, Julia lends itself perfectly for interactive usage and day-to-day scripting.

goerz 3y ago
I’m a heavy Julia user, and I love the language, but I really wouldn’t recommend it as a “general purpose scripting language”. Pushing the idea that it is will only lead to disappointment in new users. Julia is very much a language for scientific computing, in the broadest sense.

vfclists 3y ago

What is the relevance of a review of the language tried one time a few years back? Today is not a few years back. No one genuinely wants a review of the product from a few years back if they are seriously considering the language today. Julia is not Lisp or Scheme.