Hi, Have you guys tried to influence others to use Julia, and failed, for research or teaching and/or production? What has been your best argument(s) (or the most difficult counter-argument)? Do people just have to discover Julia at their own pace?
Note, I have convinced myself, *I* would use Julia, almost for everything (but have no big project planned). And I am not even the target audience for Julia. At least the first three on my list seem to be. I just envy that they have such a good language and community available for them.. while not using it. I feel you guys are unfairly keeping Julia to yourselves and think Julia could/should benefit others soon. I thought I could and did make a good case for Julia to others, while not knowing much about their specific problems/domains. At some point I mentioned here that Julia could be a good first language, and it was pointed out that there was no book. I see now there is (while not for beginners). The statistical probability of success for a new computer language is somewhere between slim to none. It seems to me Julia *should* beat the odds (at this point) at least for the target audience. But maybe not, if I can't convince people.. or if everyone wants to be a "late adopter".. If people would be waiting for an even *better* language or can't decide between alternative newer languages, I would also like to know of possible ones on the horizon. Chapel? X10? Fortress seems dead. None of these have the "dynamic"-aspect. I haven't looked too much into these alternative parallel languages (or Haskell..), do they have any advantage over Julia, now? Any language better to harness GPUs? [I'm not convinced a language should be implicitly parallel be default (as opposed to optional) or pure-functional/immutable-only.] I've been asked what is Julia's "killer application". That is, programming languages need something special too. For Julia, I think it is the speed plus "dynamic"/REPL. And it's easy to use. Is the learning curve low enough for users (compared to the benefit)? Multiple dispatch might be, really the only new thing for users (while also rewarding). (Perceived) lack of library might be a problem? I just point to, say, JuliaQuant. Any specific high-quality libraries I can point to for finance or biology? Are the libraries immature? [In a recent MATLAB-thread here, there was something mentioned about Windows issues w/Julia, should those below be worried? Solved in 0.4 or soon (in 0.3)?] 1. A friend, a PhD physicist, now (sadly..) a quant/finance guy, top dog in his department at one of the major US bank, who could use Julia (and probably influence his subordinates in his New York department and the lower ranked guys he hires for Florida). Uses Python and NumPy (and C++ for performance); nothing else I gather for performance in Python such as Numba or PyPy. Asked me, when disappointed with the parallel speed-up he was getting in Python. Would like to harness GPUs and/or the cluster they have. Says he got past the parallel problems (may have done so only at the C++ side?). He isn't sure the learning curve of Julia is worth it; Python "good enough" now. It seems to me the learning curve is not that high and he's not a beginner and while not a CompSci guy, he is very bright and should manage. Still, he though he had a firewall/admin problem at work (I assume the git problem). [He says, over at Goldman Sacks, they have their own home made language..] Going to point him to this..: http://quant-econ.net/python_or_julia.html "Learn both — you won’t regret it" Should I point him to a NYC meet-up? I see it was yesterday.. will be again - when? 2. A friend, a guy I consider a programmer wizard from my youth, MS in engineering/PhD computer science, now working in systems biology and teaches computer science classes in my university. Uses MATLAB (and C++ for performance) for his systems biology. Hates R.. doesn't use. Uses Python when teaching (say general construction/object oriented). Says MATLAB is standard in the scientific world, what you use when publishing articles.. Also isn't really too unsatisfied with the performance most of the time. Managed to get him to try out Julia (or may have been one of his students). He says C++ was 100x faster.. so he's doing something wrong. Would get a student to look into it.. I asked if I could see the code but have not so far. 3. A guy I met at work (do not know him), working in bioinformatics using Python. Says he's a "late adopter of new languages". I said "understandable.. I'm sure you would be pleasantly surprised, but I do not really know about the available bioinformatics Julia package" (plural?) or too much about your field. I understand Perl is/was popular in bioinformatics as really it's kind of string processing. Should Perl (or Python) be somehow superior to Julia for it? [You could stop reading here..] 4. A young guy in the family in his second year of BS in software engineering/computer science department. It's kind of sad, he just really wants to be a web developer, as he only gets excellent grades and therefore paid tuition.. Last time I checked he hadn't tried Julia (maybe fears the math and feels Julia not appropriate and/or just doesn't have time..). He was taking the ("alternative") programming language(s) course, starting with Smalltalk (I thought it had died.. :) C++ is *still* the first language, like when I started uni in 1993. [They also use C++11, that I haven't looked into much..] Other so far, some C# and JavaScript. 5. Another young guy in the family, highly motivated, self taught programmer that wants to release his 3D game he made with Unity. Started with "JavaScript" (in Unity) and now C# in Unity. He asked if he could make his own game engine in Julia. I said Julia would be an excellent choice if he was up for it (skipping Unity), or would be by the time he would be finished.. (real-time an issue for now). Am I wrong? There seems to be good enough OpenGL/graphics libraries at least.. Most optimistic this one will actually take a good look; least optimistic he will succeed, regardless of Julia, as a game engine is just really hard.. 6-7. Two friends, BS background similar to me, who do business type and/or web-programming. One uses COOLPLEX and just very much ok with that (and it's metaprogramming), the other C# now. Neither have a choice at work or a personal project planned. 8-14. I've also cc:-ed some old teachers/professors at my previous universities, so far I only recall 2-3 responses, from the one who taught me the programming language class(es) and compiler class, I think he looked at it but too busy (for new stuff), including with his own new language. The operation research teacher responded, sticks with MATLAB for now, a statistics teacher (who didn't teach me) that uses R and is a fan of it, responded and still uses R. One of my AI teachers, now dean, doesn't program now while dean (I thought he might influence others..), didn't respond. -- Palli.
