High Performance Numeric Programming with Swift: Explorations and Reflections
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Re: High Performance Numeric Programming with Swift: Explorations and Reflections
#2Hello folks! I wrote this article - so if you have any questions, feel free to shoot them my way. :)
Re: High Performance Numeric Programming with Swift: Explorations and Reflections
#3Hello folks! I wrote this article - so if you have any questions, feel free to shoot them my way. :)
Jeremy, if you're up for it, could you talk any more about your explorations of Julia?
I see (and agree with) your point about worse non-numeric stuff, but if you stand back and squint I get the impression Julia does most of what you applaud here, with the added benefits of a more transparent compiler and a more numeric-focused community (no need for BasicMath there!).
In particular, Flux.jl seems like a fairly direct competitor of S4TF, and this blogpost [0] really blew me away.
[0] https://www.julialang.org/blog/2018/12/ml-language-compiler
Re: High Performance Numeric Programming with Swift: Explorations and Reflections
#4Hello folks! I wrote this article - so if you have any questions, feel free to shoot them my way. :)
Jeremy, if you're up for it, could you talk any more about your explorations of Julia? I see (and agree with) your point about worse non-numeric stuff, but if you stand back and squint I get the impression Julia does most of what you applaud here, with the added benefits of a more transparent compiler and a more numeric-focused community (no need for BasicMath there!). In particular, Flux.jl seems like a fairly direc…
The post says Julia is not good for general purpose programming. I think it is good for that, it's just that it does not have as many packages as Python, that's all. I will offer one reason, Julia syntax is actually very much like Python's in many respects. So how can Python be good for general purpose programming but Julia not? So if the sentence is more like, Julia doesn't have as many packages for general programming then I think it's more precise
Re: High Performance Numeric Programming with Swift: Explorations and Reflections
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jeremy, if you're up for it, could you talk any more about your explorations of Julia? I see (and agree with) your point about worse non-numeric stuff, but if you stand back and squint I get the impression Julia does most of what you applaud here, with the added benefits of a more transparent compiler and a more numeric-focused community (no need for BasicMath there!). In particular, Flux.jl seems like a fairly direc…
The post says Julia is not good for general purpose programming. I think it is good for that, it's just that it does not have as many packages as Python, that's all. I will offer one reason, Julia syntax is actually very much like Python's in many respects. So how can Python be good for general purpose programming but Julia not? So if the sentence is more like, Julia doesn't have as many packages for general programm…
That sounds totally fair. I haven't used Julia for a couple of years so my comments on it are dated and not well informed. Everyone I know that uses Julia nowadays loves it.
Re: High Performance Numeric Programming with Swift: Explorations and Reflections
#6Hello folks! I wrote this article - so if you have any questions, feel free to shoot them my way. :)
Jeremy, if you're up for it, could you talk any more about your explorations of Julia? I see (and agree with) your point about worse non-numeric stuff, but if you stand back and squint I get the impression Julia does most of what you applaud here, with the added benefits of a more transparent compiler and a more numeric-focused community (no need for BasicMath there!). In particular, Flux.jl seems like a fairly direc…
Flux.jl does look terrific. Frankly, part of my interest in this little Swift research project was to pick something that's not at all well explored, and try to dig in to it.
Julia is much more mature for machine learning than Swift at this point. So it would be a better choice if you want something that's at least somewhat ready for use now - but I was really wanting to get in on the ground floor on something that's just getting started.
Re: High Performance Numeric Programming with Swift: Explorations and Reflections
#7Thanks for writing up your thoughts!
I find Julia's core design to be excellent for general purpose programming, better than python in fact since it essentially solves the expression problem with it's type system and multiple dispatch.
It's external program interop is also more pleasant than Python's :https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/running-external-pro...
Sure, it doesn't have the same general library ecosystem, but even that is being remedied for core areas like web programming: http://genieframework.com/ (a full MVC framework), https://github.com/JuliaGizmos/WebIO.jl (write front end code without javascript) and I'm particularly excited for https://github.com/Keno/julia-wasm, which will allow Julia programs to be compiled for the browser.
For any packages than are python only, it has excellent python interop using the pycall.jl package, which even allows users to write custom python classes in Julia.
With regards to numerical programming, it's obviously already far ahead of swift, and IMO much better placed to beat it in the long run. For example the WIP zyogte package is able to hook into Julia's compiler to zero overhead diff arbitrary code. Using Cassette.jl, package authors can write custom compiler passes outside the main repo and in pure Julia: https://julialang.org/blog/2018/12/ml-language-compiler
In addition, it's macro system, introspection, dynamic typing and value types through abstract typing approach allows for natural development of advanced probabilistic programming languages: https://github.com/TuringLang/Turing.jl, https://github.com/probcomp/Gen, https://github.com/zenna/Omega.jl/pulse
Re: High Performance Numeric Programming with Swift: Explorations and Reflections
#8Thanks for writing up your thoughts! I find Julia's core design to be excellent for general purpose programming, better than python in fact since it essentially solves the expression problem with it's type system and multiple dispatch. It's external program interop is also more pleasant than Python's : https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/running-external-pro... Sure, it doesn't have the same general library ecosy…
Agree with everything you've said, it's hard to see why one would prefer Swift over Julia for numerical computing. I use Julia for it's regex too; it's just nicer. Hopefully, the data munging packages in Julia can catch up to dplyr and data.table, then we are talking!
Re: High Performance Numeric Programming with Swift: Explorations and Reflections
#9Thanks for writing up your thoughts! I find Julia's core design to be excellent for general purpose programming, better than python in fact since it essentially solves the expression problem with it's type system and multiple dispatch. It's external program interop is also more pleasant than Python's : https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/running-external-pro... Sure, it doesn't have the same general library ecosy…
Agree with everything you've said, it's hard to see why one would prefer Swift over Julia for numerical computing. I use Julia for it's regex too; it's just nicer. Hopefully, the data munging packages in Julia can catch up to dplyr and data.table, then we are talking!
https://github.com/queryverse/Query.jl Allows for dplyr syntax to work with any iterable and custom table types using traits...So I think it's already beating R data munging in the flexibility department.
Still missing some verbs, but these will be added.
Re: High Performance Numeric Programming with Swift: Explorations and Reflections
#10Thanks for writing up your thoughts! I find Julia's core design to be excellent for general purpose programming, better than python in fact since it essentially solves the expression problem with it's type system and multiple dispatch. It's external program interop is also more pleasant than Python's : https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/running-external-pro... Sure, it doesn't have the same general library ecosy…
> With regards to numerical programming, it's obviously already far ahead of swift, and IMO much better placed to beat it in the long run.
Julia's secret sauce is LLVM. Considering the guy behind Swift also made LLVM, I'm inclined to think that Swift will come out ahead.