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Julia: A fresh approach to numerical computing

arxiv.org

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Re: Julia: A fresh approach to numerical computing

#11

Post by RivieraKid »

monochr wrote: post #4

What I would like to know before jumping in a new programming language is what it sucks at and how badly it sucks there. Never in my life have I ever heard anyone say anything good about how wonderful it is language X is good at y which is what it was designed for. I have however heard plenty of people cursing languages for not doing something which they thought was an "obvious" thing for a language to do and X didn'…

One of the few things I don't like is that it lacks a bit for object-oriented programming. Specifically:

- It doesn't use the object.method() syntax, which is often more natural and readable than method(object).

- Support for interfaces but I'm not 100% sure about that.

Re: Julia: A fresh approach to numerical computing

#14

Post by 4ad »

amelius wrote: post #8
monochr wrote: post #4

What I would like to know before jumping in a new programming language is what it sucks at and how badly it sucks there. Never in my life have I ever heard anyone say anything good about how wonderful it is language X is good at y which is what it was designed for. I have however heard plenty of people cursing languages for not doing something which they thought was an "obvious" thing for a language to do and X didn'…

What I'd like to know when learning a new language is: why can't this be done in an existing language? Take for example the R programming language. Things you do in this language can be perfectly well done in e.g. Python too. Same goes for the MATLAB language.

Julia is homoiconic, so it can do things non-homoiconic languages can't do. E.g. symbolic differentiation of Julia expressions.

Of course Lisp and Scheme can do this too, but it's virtually non-existent in any common language today. SICM makes heavy use of this.

Now, is there any other language with Lisp-like macros and static typing?

Re: Julia: A fresh approach to numerical computing

#15

Post by one-more-minute »

RivieraKid wrote: post #11
monochr wrote: post #4

What I would like to know before jumping in a new programming language is what it sucks at and how badly it sucks there. Never in my life have I ever heard anyone say anything good about how wonderful it is language X is good at y which is what it was designed for. I have however heard plenty of people cursing languages for not doing something which they thought was an "obvious" thing for a language to do and X didn'…

One of the few things I don't like is that it lacks a bit for object-oriented programming. Specifically: - It doesn't use the object.method() syntax, which is often more natural and readable than method(object). - Support for interfaces but I'm not 100% sure about that.

Julia is really more a functional language than an object oriented one. Not saying that's not a valid point (at least to the extent that favourite paradigm is subjective) but just to point out that it's about more than just syntax.

It wouldn't really make sense for Julia to support object.method() any more than it would for Haskell to, superficial as it may seem.

Re: Julia: A fresh approach to numerical computing

#16

Post by thebelal »

amelius wrote: post #8
monochr wrote: post #4

What I would like to know before jumping in a new programming language is what it sucks at and how badly it sucks there. Never in my life have I ever heard anyone say anything good about how wonderful it is language X is good at y which is what it was designed for. I have however heard plenty of people cursing languages for not doing something which they thought was an "obvious" thing for a language to do and X didn'…

What I'd like to know when learning a new language is: why can't this be done in an existing language? Take for example the R programming language. Things you do in this language can be perfectly well done in e.g. Python too. Same goes for the MATLAB language.

R (1976)[1] and Matlab (1984)[2] both predate Python (1991)[3], so I guess the answer is because the 'existing' language didn't exist.

As far as Julia goes it aims to bring strong typing and very fast native performance for numerical operations. Neither of which R, Matlab, or Python provide. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

[1]: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_(programming_language)

[2]: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATLAB

[3]: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)

Re: Julia: A fresh approach to numerical computing

#17

Post by termain »

4ad wrote: post #14
amelius wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'd like to know when learning a new language is: why can't this be done in an existing language? Take for example the R programming language. Things you do in this language can be perfectly well done in e.g. Python too. Same goes for the MATLAB language.

Julia is homoiconic, so it can do things non-homoiconic languages can't do. E.g. symbolic differentiation of Julia expressions. Of course Lisp and Scheme can do this too, but it's virtually non-existent in any common language today. SICM makes heavy use of this. Now, is there any other language with Lisp-like macros and static typing?

Typed Racket?

Re: Julia: A fresh approach to numerical computing

#18

Post by termain »

RivieraKid wrote: post #11
monochr wrote: post #4

What I would like to know before jumping in a new programming language is what it sucks at and how badly it sucks there. Never in my life have I ever heard anyone say anything good about how wonderful it is language X is good at y which is what it was designed for. I have however heard plenty of people cursing languages for not doing something which they thought was an "obvious" thing for a language to do and X didn'…

One of the few things I don't like is that it lacks a bit for object-oriented programming. Specifically: - It doesn't use the object.method() syntax, which is often more natural and readable than method(object). - Support for interfaces but I'm not 100% sure about that.

Object.method() doesn't really make sense due to multiple dispatch, I think.

Re: Julia: A fresh approach to numerical computing

#19

Post by 4ad »

termain wrote: post #17
4ad wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Julia is homoiconic, so it can do things non-homoiconic languages can't do. E.g. symbolic differentiation of Julia expressions. Of course Lisp and Scheme can do this too, but it's virtually non-existent in any common language today. SICM makes heavy use of this. Now, is there any other language with Lisp-like macros and static typing?

Typed Racket?

Never heard of it. Will check it out.

Re: Julia: A fresh approach to numerical computing

#20

Post by wbhart »

I've been playing around with the Cxx library (currently only works with a source build of bleeding edge Julia) https://github.com/Keno/Cxx.jl It allows you to basically embed ordinary C++ code in Julia code, to interface with C++ libraries at runtime, and to slurp in entire .h files unmodified. (It also in theory allows a C++ REPL mode to be written, though such a thing does not exist for Julia yet.)

It makes very clever use of a really amazing new language feature in Julia 0.4, namely staged functions. At first it looked like it was manipulating C++ via strings sent to the Clang compiler at runtime, which sounded really slow and awful. But then it dawned on me how it really worked, and I was amazed.

I've actually convinced three or four of my colleagues (mathematicians) to work on building a computer algebra system with Julia that will interface to various packages such as Pari/GP, flint, Singular, possibly Gap. We meet weekly to discuss design and to try and work on an initial implementation.

The rate at which Julia is improving and the community is increasing is astonishing. We are at the stage where Julia is offering us language features we haven't even dreamed up a use for! And yet the language remains elegant and easy to learn.

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