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Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

juliacomputing.com

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Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#41

Post by KenoFischer »

Q6T46nT668w6i3m wrote: post #34
indescions_2017 wrote: post #25

I know it's also gained a following at MIT's Broad Lab amongst genomics folks. And that seems to be Julia's sweet spot: easy parallelism for scientists who can't spare the time futzing with HPC internals. Congrats to the Julia language team and to the great scientific discoveries that will be enabled with this investment! http://julia.mit.edu/

Interesting. I'm a member of a Broad Institute lab that recently evaluated Julia. We reached the conclusion that Julia, while promising, lacked the flexibility and performance of our existing tools. I suppose this is a problem that investment could address!

I'd encourage you to reach out to the Julia lab at MIT. They're generally very happy to help spread the use of Julia at MIT.

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#42

Post by VHRanger »

drej wrote: post #36

Julia frustrates me. I was in a mathematical modelling sphere, so I learned the language basics years ago and immediately fell in love (multiple dispatch, optional types, broadcasting, ...). But I couldn't get approvals at work to push it, because it was immature. Then a month later, all my code broke. I rewrote it using new APIs. It broke again. I know they reserved the right to make breaking changes up until 1.0, b…

Biggest changes were from 0.3->0.5. Even from 0.6->1.0 it's not expected to break nearly as much code as before.

It's easier to argue to use Julia now since the New York fed uses it for their full scale model of the US economy

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#43

Post by flavio81 »

I wish them all the best. Julia seems to a good idea -- a high performance language with easy syntax (easy for Python users to jump to Julia), very good features for threading/multiprogramming, good type system...

...here it seem like any other modern language, until you see that Julia has something that many other languages lack: true macros (true metaprogramming.) A big feature. And multiple dispatch on all functions! (a very nice feature that puts it above many other languages in use.)

You can even program Julia in s-expressions if you feel like it. (Some argue that Julia should be considered a Lisp dialect.)

Compared to the other languages with Python-like, C-like or Algol-like syntax, Julia stands out from them as a more powerful alternative. (If you need more power and flexibility than Julia with good processing speed, i think only Common Lisp will clearly provide it.)

A very recommendable language, especially now with this initiative for giving more "enterprise-like" support, and worth looking in depth, if you are also considering moving to Go and Rust.

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#44

Post by _1 »

gruglife wrote: post #24

As someone that uses Python and R for data analysis, is it worth learning this language?

I didn't find it worth the time. When doing HPC work, I really care about performance, and couldn't get anywhere near the speeds as C + MPI.

If it's not HPC, I don't see a benefit over Python.

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#45

Post by skybrian »

KenoFischer wrote: post #37
skybrian wrote: post #31

I was a bit surprised by the idea of the FAA using Julia for an "Aircraft Collision Avoidance System", since it apparently doesn't have static type checking and deployment seems like a weak spot. Digging a bit deeper, it appears they use it to deliver specifications and example code to vendors? "[T]ransferring the specifications to industry using this legacy system required three different types of documentation: fir…

Yes, it's quite cool. The specification is a literate Julia program and the specification document is built from it. Simultaneously, they run large scale simulations to make sure that the specification behaves as the theory says it should. There was some discussion with them about deployment, and they funded us for a proof of concept Julia-to-C compiler, but the continuation of that discussion is probably still a num…

Having read a little about TLA+ recently, I'm curious about how specifications are written in Julia. (For example, is there model-checking involved?)

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#46

Post by edshiro »

That's an impressive amount of money to raise in Seed funding. Here in the UK this is more like Series A money: a Seed round would probably be around $700K (no authoritative source - purely from knowledge of a few companies raising this kind of money).

I do wonder though: have Julia been able to raise this much money thanks to awesome traction or the reputation of the team?

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#47

Post by _delirium »

jordigh wrote: post #26
olympus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They sell an enterprise version of Julia for $1500 per year. The main things you get are support, MS Excel integration, and a non-GPL license. They also offer consulting, training, and a few other flavors of Julia (large scale server based gets its own edition). I'm sure the main draw will be companies that don't want to be stuck with a GPL license in their product.

How do they sell the non-GPL version? Just replace the GPL libraries like FFTW with inferior replacements like FFTPACK?

The non-GPL version uses Intel's proprietary Math Kernel Library (MKL) for FFTs, linear algebra, etc.

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#48

Post by jordigh »

coldtea wrote: post #39
jordigh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, are they just selling plain ol' non-free software? The "PRO" features seem to be ripping out the GPL libraries so they can link to MKL with a support contract. I have hope this means that the paid version is also free software. https://juliacomputing.com/products/juliapro.html

> So, are they just selling plain ol' non-free software? Or, as we used to call it, just "software". They're selling software.

Right, but selling non-free software isn't interesting for those of us who really want to see more businesses thrive around free software. If it's really impossible to make money without selling non-free software, then Julia isn't very interesting from an economic perspective.

If Julia hasn't figured out how to make money without restricting customers via legal or technical means, trying to lock them in, or putting software in their machines that controls their machines without the full knowledge and consent of the users (i.e. source code and permission), then I'm not really interested in what they're doing economically.

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#49

Post by gaius »

gruglife wrote: post #24

As someone that uses Python and R for data analysis, is it worth learning this language?

No. Not a knock on the language (I've never used it) but look at the R and Python ecosystems - it will be incredibly hard to replicate them. Then you have all the proprietary tools - MATLAB, Mathematica, Q etc - they aren't going anywhere. Then there's all the legacy FORTRAN code...

If it's still around in 10 years then it might be worth looking at (but still probably not).

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#50

Post by zbobet2012 »

flavio81 wrote: post #43

I wish them all the best. Julia seems to a good idea -- a high performance language with easy syntax (easy for Python users to jump to Julia), very good features for threading/multiprogramming, good type system... ...here it seem like any other modern language, until you see that Julia has something that many other languages lack: true macros (true metaprogramming.) A big feature. And multiple dispatch on all functio…

Julia is a great language, but it is still focused on the numerical computing world and is not "1.0" (language and API's are not locked down). I wouldn't really compare it to Go or Rust at this point. Go is focused on building services at its core (e.g. external event driven workflows). Aka microservices. Rust is focused on being a "traditional" systems programming language. Things like web browsers (duh), office suites, games, etc.

Julia is focused on taking the best of R, Python/Numpy, and Matlab. It is a _great_ language. But as far as I can see it's really focused on a different problem space.

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