back to article Julia 0.7 arrives but let's call it 1.0: Data science code language hits milestone on birthday

Julia, the open-source programming language with a taste for science, turned 1.0 on Thursday, six years after its public debut in 2012. The occasion was presented on YouTube, live from JuliaCon 2018 in London. Created by Jeff Bezanson, Stefan Karpinski, Viral Shah, and Alan Edelman, the language was designed to excel at data …

  1. WibbleMe

    Hello Cake shop, I cant decide what to have so I will have one of everything. Burp.

    1. ibmalone

      It slices! It dices!

      Might have to give it a look, but attempting to do everything makes me wonder if they've managed to do anything...

      1. HPCJohn

        Achieved anything?

        I am sitting in a talk right now where a researcher is analyzin biodiversity around the world.

        OR how about the production risk model at a major insurance company?

        Or using ulia to model pharmacokinetics?

      2. HPCJohn

        https://twitter.com/Viral_B_Shah/status/1027909447937667072

        Loading 100GB of data and analysing 100 years worth of climate data

  2. Joe W Silver badge
    Joke

    Indices...

    ... should start where I want them to. You know, like in a proper scientific programming language, like Fortran....

    (start the flame wars...

    I currently code in Fortran, R, bash, MatLab, and a bit of SQL and used to write code in C++, LabVIEW, postscript, ...)

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Trollface

      Still,

      It's nice to know that there is still an area where raw, knee-jerk hatred can still express itself with impunity.

      The indices start at 1 ? BURN THAT SHIT DOWN AND NUKE IT FROM SPACE ! AAAAARRRGGGHHH !

      Personally, I prefer indices starting at 0, because habit, but I am not about to trash a language simply because of indices. Especially if I have an option to change that.

      Now, meaningful whitespace, on the other hand . . .

      1. Tom 38

        Re: Still,

        You don't really have an option to change it in Julia, you can simply create custom array types that are zero based, which will be a lot of fun when you aren't sure what kind of array you are being passed, or if one person likes 0-based and another likes 1-based..

        PS: All whitespace is meaningful. If the language itself doesn't take any meaning from it, the developers reading the code do.

        1. ibmalone

          Re: Still,

          Definitely. Being a physicist before a programmer, and a semi-regular R and occasional matlab user I have no problem with indices starting at 1. But attempting to mix systems is asking for trouble.

      2. a_yank_lurker

        Re: Still,

        The language I use at work indexes starting with 1. Both methods work, just have to know which is being used.

    2. HPCJohn

      Re: Indices...

      Joe W, you have it exactly. You can change to using Julia for every one of those use cases, except LabView probably.

      Give it a try - but at the Reg says use 0.7 for the moment. You may end up liking it!

    3. Zippy´s Sausage Factory

      Re: Indices...

      Only Visual Basic really seems to have arrays sorted out. Arrays start at LBound(array) and end at UBound(array), and can start and end anywhere you like.

      And yes I'd rather not go back to programming in VB, but I do rather miss "arrays start wherever I say they do".

      1. WibbleMe

        Re: Indices...

        You cant just .push("Suggestions") like that!

      2. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

        Re: Indices...

        Then there's the OPTION BASE statement. (I was glad to see it's alive and well. I remember it from GwBasic days -- added as a sop for the moaners.)

      3. Kubla Cant

        Re: Indices...

        Only Visual Basic really seems to have arrays sorted out.

        It's been a long time, but I recall that Pascal allows array [x..y], and the indices don't have to be contiguous, or even numeric.

      4. Arthur the cat Silver badge

        Re: Indices...

        Only Visual Basic really seems to have arrays sorted out.

        Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

        Algol 68 arrays had arbitrary bounds:

        [-23:999]REAL data;

        and array slices could have their lower bound arbitrarily set:

        data[-2:47@2001]

  3. molletts

    You missed one there. Rsters? Why not R-souls?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I have a mug at work with the slogan "I'm an R-soul" printed on it.

  4. Fazal Majid

    Gaston Julia

    The language is named after French mathematician Gaston Julia, not horse face Roberts.

    1. HPCJohn

      Re: Gaston Julia

      The discussion on naming Julia comes around n the Julia discourse regularly.

      It is not named after anything in particular.

    2. elDog

      Re: Gaston Julia

      However Julia is named, I'll never complain about seeing Julie (or Julia) Roberts face. These are two very different people but obviously someone is an equestrian.

  5. Merrill

    Julia Computing

    See https://juliacomputing.com/ for Julia products including Julia BOX, an online environment for coding in a browser using Jupyter Notebooks, and Julia Pro, an environment for science and engineering on the desktop including many packages. Note that it is still at 6.4.1, presumably until the package ecosystem is upgraded to 1.0 and fully tested.

    Julia BOX is free, and it is the best way to get a feel for the language, especially if you are already using Python Notbooks.

  6. bob, mon!
    Trollface

    They missed one goal for their language...

    It should do what I MEAN, not what I typed!!!

    As for array indices, there's no such thing. They're all offsets from the array's beginning --- look at the disassembly if you don't think so.

  7. Kev99 Silver badge

    Two language questions. First, how does one create a new programming language and know it will work on the planned compatible CPUs?

    Second and related, does a chip company code a new chip design?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Seriously Viral Shah?

    King of infection, lol he has got to be a US citizen since under the new visa rules that name would at best see him put back on the 'plane and at worst never seen again

  9. WibbleMe

    And now for a troll....

    Have you tried typescript?

  10. Adrian 4

    0.7

    And what's wrong with calling it 1.0 ? A major version number change usually implies some sort of milestone, not a decimal increment. How would you ensure there are exactly 10 minor increments between major increments ? Add bugs until you'd done enough releases ?

    At least their numbering doesn't go 3, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like