I'm glad you're enthusiastic about Julia. If you're looking to pitch in, one good place to look is the list of open issues: https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues If you're most interested in "features," filtering on the "up for grabs" label might be a good start.
Best, --Tim On Friday, December 05, 2014 06:00:31 AM Páll Haraldsson wrote: > On Friday, December 5, 2014 11:34:46 AM UTC, Tamas Papp wrote: > > On Fri, Dec 05 2014, Páll Haraldsson <pall.ha...@gmail.com <javascript:>> > > > > wrote: > > > On Friday, December 5, 2014 8:54:26 AM UTC, Tamas Papp wrote: > > >> I find your aversion to femtolisp difficult to understand, probably > > >> because I tend to think of Julia as a Lisp with the following key > > > > > >> features: > > > I don't really have an aversion to femtolisp. I understand it's an > > > > awesome > > > > > implementation of Scheme. > > > > > > If you "think of Julia as a Lisp" (including Scheme, right?) then when > > > would you prefer Lisp (or Scheme) for new things after Julia came along? > > > > Sorry, but did you read my e-mail? As I said, Julia is much more > > optimizable > > > > > > > > with its richer type system, which is a great advantage for > > me. Common Lisp is remarkably nice, but > > Yes I did read it. Note, I meant would you still recommend (Common) Lisp > for anything, you seem to argue well for Julia (and against > "Lisp"/S-expressions while you're at it?). Note also, I said "would you > prefer Lisp (or Scheme)". I know Scheme is a dialect of Lisp and Racket of > Scheme, but am not expert on the differences. I may be grouping all the > Lisps together unfairly. Your objections to Common Lisp may not generalize > to them all. > > Personally, I like S-expressions too, but many people prefer > > > M-expressions, especially for math (they are indeed more compact). > > Is there a good way to call any (or all) of the S-expressions languages > from Julia? I'm not even sure it's important too, there could be lots of > useful preexisting code. > > > >> I am not so > > >> sure that current technology allows a single language to be good at > > >> everything, languages like C seem to be difficult to replace with > > >> dynamic languages in some situations. > > > > These are very abstract points, and I am not sure that discussing them > > as such is very productive. As many have remarked in this thread, > > languages are tools, designed for a given prupose. Is a hammer better > > than a screwdriver? Etc. > > Libraries are also "tools", I'm just not at all convinced we need many > languages (for different "purposes", maybe with very few limited > exceptions) rather than just new libraries. That seems to be a failure of > computer science. > > > > Why? For C, Julia seems already better for almost all users. If > > > > "languages > > > > > like C" means C++, I could see all new code in Julia and C++ as legacy. > > > What other "like C" do you mean? > > > > Again, I am wondering if you actually read the replies to your > > questions. Many have remarked on these issues in their replies to you, > > eg dynamic vs manual memory allocation, etc. C, C++, and Fortran are > > fundamentally different from Julia at the moment. > > I read all the replies (might have missed some). I already mentioned > dynamic memory allocation in my first post as a temporary limitation > (currently would be a problem for very few users/uses). Never programmed in > Fortran but think it also uses manual memory allocation. While Julia uses > those languages in part I think manual is not the reason for their (or > Julia's) speed; in general that they are fundamentally different in a > better way or others. Garbage collection can be hard real-time and fast > (and Julia - the core language wouldn't need changes that break > compatibility). > > or by > > > helping to discover where it could be improved. > > > > Partly why I'm writing this. I want to know what needs improving or if > > something can't be improved, unless breaking things in a minor way or > fundamentally that Julia can't work. > > > Frankly, I don't understand your decision problem -- are you trying to > > decide whether to invest learning in Julia vs some other language? Even > > though that question does not have a well-defined answer either, it is > > possible that you would get more useful advice. > > Yes, I'm not too worried about me. I don't think I'm wasting time learning > (more about) Julia, I just do not want to point people to it if there are > even better languages available or if there is some defect in Julia I'm > missing. It seems to be a good first language to learn, not just for > "matrix methods" (is that all the Universities have started teaching with > Julia?). > > Best regards, > Palli.
