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Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

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Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#71

I've heard good reviews of the language here. So I've no doubt about its technical capabilities. However, funding might suppress the ability to make breaking changes.. which I believe are pretty good until 1.0 or so. On the business side, will we end up with (hopefully) a better, cheaper Matlab?

$1500 for JuliaPro - maybe not?

My guess is that we'll probably start seeing pricing split into various modules a la Matlab - Julia Financial, FEM, Semiconductor etc. Also Julia Enterprise etc.

Maybe Mathworks will acquire them and call it MATLAB 2020!

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#72
post #49

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).

> it will be incredibly hard to replicate them

This is true, sort of. It was also true when people said the same about Perl (some people still say this about Perl!). Then Rails happened to Ruby, just as the web was going through another phase of explosive growth. Likewise, Node or Rust + GitHub effect.

The point is not to compare the growth trajectories or projected peaks, but to emphasize the levering effect of an enjoyable language combined with modern collaborative development and infrastructure. A language doesn't need "everyone" to build a viable ecosystem, just a critical mass.

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

Knock on wood and all, but from past observation, I think Julia is at or very close to this critical mass already. I would compare Julia now to the SciPy ecosystem around 2009-2010. That's just when IPython was getting popular, early versions of Pandas were released, and people were starting to trust Cython. (I was a heavy Python user then, and frequently suggested it to Matlab users who had exactly your question even in to 2012-2013). There's already a surprising breadth of packages, they just need time to mature. Sometimes too many, actually -- I recently found three for a relatively obscure geophysics format I used to work with. That lever is big enough that people often don't mind rolling their own.

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#73

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

As someone who used Python and R, and also Julia, my take on Julia has changed over time.

My overall assessment is that yes, it's definitely worth getting your feet wet with. It has all the advantages of R or Python (for numerics, a point I will return to), but with much, much better performance. I feel like the syntax is also cleaner than either, although it has more of an advantage over R than Python in that area (I like Python's syntax more than R's).

I had an experience of some prototype R code running for about a day without finishing. The same code in Julia finished in about 5 minutes. It was kind of the final straw that convinced me to gradually move.

Since that time, though, there's one issue that's kind of nagged me, and has only grown over time, which is that Julia is kind of a niche language, like R. It's a big niche, and it might not matter, but over time I've come to appreciate the fact that Python is more general purpose. I am also watching as things like Kotlin, Scala, and Nim gain in popularity and in resources. I suspect that Julia will expand over time, but those others have a head start in some ways (even if they are behind in other ways).

Like some others, I also had some experience of head-scratching changes that occurred with new API-breaking releases. They were subtle changes that were difficult to catch because they weren't deprecations or things that caused errors, but changes in how valid syntax is interpreted. I don't see that as a long-term problem, but it gave me pause.

I guess the TLDR is: if you're interested, I recommend you dip your toes in it, if that works for you, but with some caution. I see it more as a replacement for R long-term than Python, and I see serious competitors rising in popularity.

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#74
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- JuliaPro is free, but the paid version comes with support and integration with Excel and JuliaRun (possibly more features in future). - JuliaRun is for easily scalable deployment of code, either for cloud or local servers. - JuliaBox is as you say, available here https://juliabox.com/ - JuliaFin is completely separate, and currently consists of Bloomberg integration and the Miletus contract specification and pricin…

Hey, I'd be interested in knowing if you're just selling plain ol' non-free software. Can I buy the PRO version and give it to my friends, can I study it, can I modify it? It's a little sad when we are trying to figure out how to make money for free software and the answer ends up being "sell (some) software non-freely". Okay, so it's impossible to make money without selling non-free software? There can only be one R…

Having explored this option somewhat recently, I assure you: it is just plain, old, non-free software.

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#75
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- JuliaPro is free, but the paid version comes with support and integration with Excel and JuliaRun (possibly more features in future). - JuliaRun is for easily scalable deployment of code, either for cloud or local servers. - JuliaBox is as you say, available here https://juliabox.com/ - JuliaFin is completely separate, and currently consists of Bloomberg integration and the Miletus contract specification and pricin…

Hey, I'd be interested in knowing if you're just selling plain ol' non-free software. Can I buy the PRO version and give it to my friends, can I study it, can I modify it? It's a little sad when we are trying to figure out how to make money for free software and the answer ends up being "sell (some) software non-freely". Okay, so it's impossible to make money without selling non-free software? There can only be one R…

> Can I buy the PRO version and give it to my friends, can I study it, can I modify it?

Mostly: JuliaPro is essentially a nice convenient installer of a huge collection of open source work (though I can't say for sure, as I'm not really involved in that part). A few small components (e.g. the Excel plugin) are not open, and we are moving to MKL for some stuff, so that will change slightly though.

Open source business models are hard (as you're no doubt aware). You may disagree, but I think Julia Computing has so far done a good job of balancing the open source vs business aspect, which is part of the reason I originally joined.

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#76
post #54

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…

For non-CS scientific computing users, "a high performance language with easy syntax" is a big feature.

It's why the horror that is MATLAB exists. I'm looking forward to replacing MATLAB with the much more ergonomic Julia soon though.

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#77

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 sui…

> Julia is a great language, but it is still focused on the numerical computing world and is not "1.0"

Word on the street is that Julia is supposed to get a 1.0 announcement at JuliaCon, which started today.

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#78
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For non-CS scientific computing users, "a high performance language with easy syntax" is a big feature.

Exactly, that's why I think Julia is a good idea. For scientific users used to R or Python, the performance should knock their socks off. (But users doing their work in C, C++ or Fortran will probably see little or no improvement).

Do we really need Julia given that Python has Numpy which does a lot of the heavy lifting in numerical computation and is pretty fast?

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#79
I wonder if this would be a feasible funding strategy for Crystal (https://crystal-lang.org/) as well. From the scattered benchmarks I could find online†, Crystal seems to be just as fast, if not a bit faster.

https://github.com/kostya/benchmarks, http://blog.seraum.com/crystal-lang-vs-nodejs-vs-golang-vs-j...

Re: Julia Computing Raises $4.6M in Seed Funding

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, that's why I think Julia is a good idea. For scientific users used to R or Python, the performance should knock their socks off. (But users doing their work in C, C++ or Fortran will probably see little or no improvement).

Do we really need Julia given that Python has Numpy which does a lot of the heavy lifting in numerical computation and is pretty fast?

Numpy is great as long as you're using Numpy. There's lots of aspects of scientific computing that may not be using Numpy.
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