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Federal Reserve Bank of NY converts major economic model to Julia

libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org

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

#51

Post by lfowles »

nine_k wrote: post #26
kohanz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 6-1…

> If you single-handedly list Python and C++ together, Matlab should have some ridiculously low entry barrier.

The ridiculously low entry barrier exists wrt importing data and plotting/displaying results.

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

#52

Post by jordigh »

nkassis wrote: post #17
krapht wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libraries. Inertia. The IDE is actually far more polished than Spyder. It makes things easier for non-programmers with many wizards, and excellent help files. The toolboxes are uniformly fairly high quality. I should mention again the help files. Matlab documentation is comprehensive and far better than any of its competitors. There are many research institutions and workplaces where the cost of the tool isn't really…

"There are many research institutions and workplaces where the cost of the tool isn't really thought about at all. In fact, the cost of Matlab and toolbox fees is a small fraction of a senior scientist/engineer's total compensation." Yeah that's my experience with my current job. Matlab licenses aren't an issue. Also many people have Bloomberg terminals and other expensive tools of that trade that make Matlab look fa…

> For a language to beat out Matlab it will need to be based on other factors than cost.

There are plenty of cases in which Matlab's cost is a big factor. Maybe not at your company, but some of Octave's most ardent paying customers have been those disgruntled with Matlab's price tag.

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

#53

Post by krapht »

baldfat wrote: post #14
krapht wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libraries. Inertia. The IDE is actually far more polished than Spyder. It makes things easier for non-programmers with many wizards, and excellent help files. The toolboxes are uniformly fairly high quality. I should mention again the help files. Matlab documentation is comprehensive and far better than any of its competitors. There are many research institutions and workplaces where the cost of the tool isn't really…

> The main competitor is Python I would say that it really is R. Python while a good choice is a fraction of the size of R and R as a domain specific language excels in its own realm. Using R with RStudio and sticking with Hadley Wickham universe with Functional Programming makes R shine. There is a reason why so many companies invest in R.

I think your perspective is too small. R is a DSL for data and statistics. Matlab is used in academia and industry across all engineering disciplines, where data and statistics is but a small subset of its total capabilities.

You will never be able to use R to model a Kalman filter, calculate stresses in a beam, or simulate engine control logic.

I refer you to Matlab's toolbox list. http://www.mathworks.com/products/

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

#54

Post by placeybordeaux »

jordigh wrote: post #20
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…

> it looks like the biggest loser to Julia's rise might be Octave. It's not a competition. Julia is our friend, not a rival to Octave. We're on good terms with their developers. Occasionally we share ideas and patches back and forth when it makes sense. They've asked me for help with their Octave benchmark and I've gladly provided it. Octave being unnecessary is Octave's ultimate goal. When nobody cares about Matlab,…

It's good to see people that have a goal beyond wanting their personal project to succeed, but rather to keep the original reason they started the project at the for front.

Too often large enterprises and projects forget the reason they were started and simply try to keep themselves relevant.

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

#55

Post by bglazer »

cauthon wrote: post #46
has2k1 wrote: post #45

I like the use of the Greek alphabet in the code base. Examples https://github.com/FRBNY-DSGE/DSGE.jl/blob/master/src/solve/... https://github.com/FRBNY-DSGE/DSGE.jl/blob/master/src/solve/...

Whoa that's awesome, are there any other languages that allow that?

Javascript too. D3 uses it quite extensively.

See here: https://github.com/mbostock/d3/blob/master/src/geo/centroid....

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

#56

Post by jordigh »

placeybordeaux wrote: post #54
jordigh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it looks like the biggest loser to Julia's rise might be Octave. It's not a competition. Julia is our friend, not a rival to Octave. We're on good terms with their developers. Occasionally we share ideas and patches back and forth when it makes sense. They've asked me for help with their Octave benchmark and I've gladly provided it. Octave being unnecessary is Octave's ultimate goal. When nobody cares about Matlab,…

It's good to see people that have a goal beyond wanting their personal project to succeed, but rather to keep the original reason they started the project at the for front. Too often large enterprises and projects forget the reason they were started and simply try to keep themselves relevant.

Well, Octave wasn't started with the goal to take down Matlab. That became a goal later in the project's lifetime as it became clear that users were demanding it.

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

#57

Post by SolarNet »

neffy wrote: post #42
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

The DSGE models are influential up until somebody comes up with a valid alternative, at which point they will be dropped at somewhat over the speed of light :) To be brutally honest, this is not a big achievement. You should be able to rapidly speed up any matlab model by porting it into pretty much any other language due to well known issues with matlab. Being able to run DSGE models more quickly is important to eco…

Is there a reason calibration isn't automatic? Say with some sort of genetic algorithm?

Do the simulations take too long?

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

#58

Post by grayclhn »

aswanson wrote: post #22
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…

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

As (potentially) one of those professors, I'm going to suggest that if you're posting on HN, you have no idea how little computer experience some of the Econ, engineering, etc. students have. Matlab and other programs like it try hard to smooth over some of the rough edges that can trip up complete novices. As long as the main focus of the class is teaching "something other than programming" that's going to be pretty attractive.

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

#59

Post by grayclhn »

bachmeier wrote: post #19

The real news here is not the move to Julia (although that is likely to be the reason for most of the attention). The important thing is the move to open - an open language, movement to Github, nice explanation of the details.

No. A central bank moving at all to Julia is absolutely fucking huge.

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

#60

Post by Hansi »

krapht wrote: post #53
baldfat wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main competitor is Python I would say that it really is R. Python while a good choice is a fraction of the size of R and R as a domain specific language excels in its own realm. Using R with RStudio and sticking with Hadley Wickham universe with Functional Programming makes R shine. There is a reason why so many companies invest in R.

I think your perspective is too small. R is a DSL for data and statistics. Matlab is used in academia and industry across all engineering disciplines, where data and statistics is but a small subset of its total capabilities. You will never be able to use R to model a Kalman filter, calculate stresses in a beam, or simulate engine control logic. I refer you to Matlab's toolbox list. http://www.mathworks.com/products/

Sorry you are wrong especially about your first example. For the other two yes there aren't built in toolboxes to handle those but it can be done. R has a lot of packages + it's a language so anyone can effectively write anything: https://cran.r-project.org/web/views/
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