I really want to love Julia. I've never gotten over the startup time, slow string functions, and package manager repl thing. Perhaps I was getting into it at a bad time, right around the time the new package manager was being announced. The whole thing felt very magic... too R like for comfort.
The start up times really bug me too. I think the solution might be sticking to a Jupyter/Juno session or keeping a repl open and reloading. https://github.com/timholy/Revise.jl
It is incredible the degree with which small inconveniences can inhibit adoption.
Probably not easily embedable on a vehicle though.