Federal Reserve Bank of NY converts major economic model to Julia • Hacker News Board

Re: Federal Reserve Bank of NY converts major economic model to Julia

#21

Post by Jgrubb » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 5:50 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #13

For those of you in this field...how influential is the NYFed trying out (and apparently being satisfied with) Julia to other government agencies, computational economists, and/or academics? Is it "OS X is Unix/BSD-based" influential, or "Whitehouse.gov uses Drupal [1]" influential? [1] http://buytaert.net/whitehouse-gov-using-drupal

I'm not sure how the comparison stacks up for you. Drupal nabbing the whitehouse site was pretty huge in enabling it to land a bunch of other government and higher ed sites/mindshare. I'm not sure which end of the order of magnitude scale you place that though.

Re: Federal Reserve Bank of NY converts major economic model to Julia

#22

Post by aswanson » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 5:52 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #8

chollida1 wrote: post #2

Cool, despite Julia replacing matlab here, it looks like the biggest loser to Julia's rise might be Octave. Matlab will always have its proponents, that will use it no matter what, but if Julia keeps encroaching on this territory, I'm not sure where that leaves Ocatve. To the model discussed in this paper, check out this series of blog posts for more information: http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2014/09/f…

> Matlab will always have its proponents I honestly can't understand why. I'm currently in a computer vision class that uses Matlab, and it's literally the worst language I've ever used in my life. The design is nonsensical, bordering on malicious I've always thought that the biggest problem with python was that as programs get bigger, you're likely to run into some confusion due to the lack of static typing and subs…

Why? Because professors keep assigning students problems with it, immune to its high cost and suspect coding idioms because they aren't professional programmers.

Re: Federal Reserve Bank of NY converts major economic model to Julia

#23

Post by josu » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 5:54 PM UTC

chollida1 wrote: post #2

Cool, despite Julia replacing matlab here, it looks like the biggest loser to Julia's rise might be Octave. Matlab will always have its proponents, that will use it no matter what, but if Julia keeps encroaching on this territory, I'm not sure where that leaves Ocatve. To the model discussed in this paper, check out this series of blog posts for more information: http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2014/09/f…

This is an anecdote about a big Matlab proponent who switched sides.

I learned Matlab from my Econ 101 professor 8 years ago. He was a big Matlab proponent, and he knew all the econ tools inside out.

We kept in touch, since he has been one of the best professors I've ever had. So, fast forward to 2 years ago, I sent him an email asking about this [1] Quantitative Economics course by Sargent and Stachurski based on python. He told me that it looked interesting and that he would give it a try and tell me what he thought. This was his first approach to Python.

Two months later he sends me an email telling me that he's ditched Matlab for good, he's taken a couple MOOC python courses and that he is having a lot of fun with Python. He also praised the community and all the open source tools. He also told me to get away from the Sargent and Stachurski course, that they add too much complexity to the explanations just for the sake of looking more Nobel-prize-winner like.

[1] http://quant-econ.net/

Re: Federal Reserve Bank of NY converts major economic model to Julia

#24

Post by k2enemy » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 6:16 PM UTC

bachmeier wrote: post #18

danso wrote: post #13

For those of you in this field...how influential is the NYFed trying out (and apparently being satisfied with) Julia to other government agencies, computational economists, and/or academics? Is it "OS X is Unix/BSD-based" influential, or "Whitehouse.gov uses Drupal [1]" influential? [1] http://buytaert.net/whitehouse-gov-using-drupal

To be honest, it will have very little influence. Economists don't like to change their tools.

Economists don't like to change their tools, but Julia is getting a lot of attention among grad students that are picking between Julia, Python, and Matlab as a first language.

Re: Federal Reserve Bank of NY converts major economic model to Julia

#25

Post by Cowen » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 6:24 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #13

For those of you in this field...how influential is the NYFed trying out (and apparently being satisfied with) Julia to other government agencies, computational economists, and/or academics? Is it "OS X is Unix/BSD-based" influential, or "Whitehouse.gov uses Drupal [1]" influential? [1] http://buytaert.net/whitehouse-gov-using-drupal

As far as votes of confidence go, Julia landing successfully at any of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks is a strong one. They all do a whole mess of complex modeling. The NY Fed in particular is a "first among equals" in the Federal Reserve system, so it's always good to be there.

That said, I have no idea if this will be that influential on economists changing their tools, or the tools that they teach to their students. People tend to stick with tools that they know and like. But it's very possible that this will help Julia in the eyes of people getting into the field choosing their first programming language.

Re: Federal Reserve Bank of NY converts major economic model to Julia

#26

Post by nine_k » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 6:35 PM UTC

kohanz wrote: post #10

wyager wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Matlab will always have its proponents I honestly can't understand why. I'm currently in a computer vision class that uses Matlab, and it's literally the worst language I've ever used in my life. The design is nonsensical, bordering on malicious I've always thought that the biggest problem with python was that as programs get bigger, you're likely to run into some confusion due to the lack of static typing and subs…

> I honestly can't understand why The answer is fairly obvious though, isn't it? For scientists or novice programmers wanting to do some numerically intensive work, Matlab has typically offered one of the quickest (in time-to-solution) prototyping platforms. One of the keys being that you can get started very quickly, with minimal setup (besides the expensive license and installation, something most academics need no…

If you single-handedly list Python and C++ together, Matlab should have some ridiculously low entry barrier. I can remember a few other horrible tools that saw widespread use exactly because of that, e.g. Basic and PHP3/4.

Corollary: if you are offered a tool highly praised for its being exceptionally easy for beginners, think about the price the tool had to pay in other departments, and how will it affect you in 6-12 months of use.

Re: Federal Reserve Bank of NY converts major economic model to Julia

#27

Post by kolbe » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 6:36 PM UTC

I've never written a line of Julia in my life, and I'm usually somewhat adept at figuring out what is going on when I read the source of unfamiliar languages. But I'm am having one helluva time trying to differentiate comments and code.

EDIT: downvotes? wtf?

Re: Federal Reserve Bank of NY converts major economic model to Julia

#28

Post by burke » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 6:38 PM UTC

kolbe wrote: post #27

I've never written a line of Julia in my life, and I'm usually somewhat adept at figuring out what is going on when I read the source of unfamiliar languages. But I'm am having one helluva time trying to differentiate comments and code. EDIT: downvotes? wtf?

I haven't either, but they just start with a #, right? What's the problem?

EDIT: Oh, I see there are multiline comments.

Re: Federal Reserve Bank of NY converts major economic model to Julia

#29

Post by nine_k » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 6:38 PM UTC

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #16

wyager wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Matlab will always have its proponents I honestly can't understand why. I'm currently in a computer vision class that uses Matlab, and it's literally the worst language I've ever used in my life. The design is nonsensical, bordering on malicious I've always thought that the biggest problem with python was that as programs get bigger, you're likely to run into some confusion due to the lack of static typing and subs…

It works well enough and there's an incredible amount of infrastructure behind it. It's an academic's job to produce research, not code.

* Don't unreliable tools impede research?

* Isn't it a good idea to publish code used to produce the results so as to help fellow scientists verify the results and methods?

Re: Federal Reserve Bank of NY converts major economic model to Julia

#30

Post by boxy310 » Thu, Dec 03, 2015, 6:39 PM UTC

kohanz wrote: post #10

wyager wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Matlab will always have its proponents I honestly can't understand why. I'm currently in a computer vision class that uses Matlab, and it's literally the worst language I've ever used in my life. The design is nonsensical, bordering on malicious I've always thought that the biggest problem with python was that as programs get bigger, you're likely to run into some confusion due to the lack of static typing and subs…

> I honestly can't understand why The answer is fairly obvious though, isn't it? For scientists or novice programmers wanting to do some numerically intensive work, Matlab has typically offered one of the quickest (in time-to-solution) prototyping platforms. One of the keys being that you can get started very quickly, with minimal setup (besides the expensive license and installation, something most academics need no…

These are the same case-uses as Excel and Access, and these also end up bloating in size and becoming unmanageable. The problem is that the selection criteria that lead to using Matlab in the first place also lead to never paying down technical debt.