Optimization should definitely be on this list. The JuMP package is just phenomenal, in my mind a much better overall experience for many problems than any existing alternative.
From: julia-users@googlegroups.com [mailto:julia-users@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Andrei Zh Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2015 1:58 PM To: julia-users <julia-users@googlegroups.com> Subject: [julia-users] Re: What are the "strengths" of the Julia "ecosystem" (e.g. for bio and quants/finance)? This is not a very specific question (while sub-questions are), you've been warned.. If you are looking for a best in the class libraries, you probably won't find many. This is implied by a simple fact that most such libraries had already been created in other languages by the time Julia was born. However, if you want something comparable to such best libraries, then I would stress the following areas (from my experience and highly subjectively, of course): * image processing (e.g. Images.jl, ImageView.jl), which still changes, but has quite impressive functionality already * deep learning (e.g. Mocha.jl, Strada.jl, Boltzmann.jl) - fast, full functional, easy to use and modify libraries (compare to frameworks in C++ or Theano, for example) * concurrent, parallel and distributed programming (core Julia) - far behind Python or R, probably comparable with Erlang * GPU computing (see JuliaGPU organization) - pretty convenient, especially combined with Julia's compilation to native code * symbolic and metaprogramming (macros, Calculus.jl) - like Lisp with infix notation or SymPy, built in the language I also expect that Julia will become more popular with development of new areas for which there are no good libraries at all and Julia may become perfect solution. At the same time, to keep people involved, we not only need to add more strengths, but also remove weaknesses. And Julia's web stack seems to be one of the biggest weaknesses, so if you are interested and wish to contribute, please, do it. On Wednesday, September 23, 2015 at 5:03:02 PM UTC+3, Páll Haraldsson wrote: On Wednesday, September 23, 2015 at 12:35:47 PM UTC, Randy Zwitch wrote: Julia is as capable as any of the languages you have mentioned as far as I'm concerned. When I read "people want to get work done", I read that as "people want SOMEONE ELSE to do the work". And you would be absolutely right. I tried to phrase the question in a positive way with "and help needed?" [For me, that would be mostly non-math stuff*, and I've submitted some trivial/beginner.. fixes.] I'm ok with that as I am just tinkering. Imagine Julia had no libraries, as at first then I would have been as exited about the language. It is a language that makes me think differently and try new paradigms I haven't tried before (multiple dispatch). I might have tried to build a website (and web server from scratch). Some people do not want to be early adopters. I can understand that. I'm not so sure you would be by now. I'm asking about the "ecosystem" not the language per se. I know about JuliaQuant, BioJulia, GPU stuff in Julia JuliaWeb etc. I am so grateful for what has already been done with the language - and the libraries from what I can see. If there where my fields, I think I would jump on Julia right now. I'm not sure why people are reluctant, I want to tell them you do not only have basic building blocks (linear algebra/matrix multiplication, FFT etc. stuff in Base), but also these libraries that (mostly) work, and if not you can help fix/contribute. I do not want to oversell Julia, so I keep quiet (mostly) about stuff I'm ignorant about.. * I knew about say, Morsel (Sinatra-like), then Mux is recommended over it. I'm not sure, it seems to be a replacement/also Sinatra-style. I've never used "full web frameworks". PHP isn't my favorite language and while I'm sure Python (or Ruby) is nice for web stuff I'm willing to use Julia even if there is (short term) pain/learning experience.. I would want to be able to do what is needed in pure Julia. Even knowing about future direction is helpful, there might be some duplication of effort and you might end up fixing the wrong package.. A list of packages to use/focus on for helping with would be helpful in this and the other two areas. > Julia probably isn't the place for them now Are at least some of the packages ready and used in production already? -- Palli.
