Have you already noticed that error messages (on julia 0.3.0-prerelease+1419) for sqrt(-1) and sqrt(-1.0) are different? Here:
julia> sqrt(-1) ERROR: DomainError julia> sqrt(-1.0) ERROR: DomainError sqrt will only return a complex result if called with a complex argument. try sqrt(complex(x)) in sqrt at math.jl:277 Is it a bug?