What I don't like is how Julia attempts to force you into a REPL workflow. Everything is optimized for REPL work. I just want to write a script in a text editor and run it from the command line. Please make this easy for me.
(Other HN comments have said this in more detail, for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27310747.)
This comment really does not resonate with me. It sounds like a criticism of Smalltalk, not Julia. Not sure what it means to change "syntax on the fly", but that does sound like the sort of design that is maximally flexible, at a considerable cost to readability. Macros already allow you to embed DSLs (as long as they parse), and almost everyone agree that they should be used sparingly.
> And also tends to ease the IMHO weird hung-ups on syntax. In fact, I think Julia has made some (IMHO misguided) syntactic decisions because they just want to do something differently from Python just for the sake of being different. I find this totally senseless.
I am not aware of any decision that is done just for the sake of being different. If there are any, then yes that's senseless.
GP meant that Julia enthusiasts seem to dislike the cognitive overhead of switching between languages (e.g. Bash scripts, SQL, C code, Python scripts, and as GP wants, Julia scripts as well) while doing multi-language development using the whole Unix computer as a programming tool.
As opposed to doing everything in a Julia REPL.
We need to listen to people that have gone through the experience of putting complex systems together and their learnings are immeasurably valuable. This is the eternal balance of theoriticians and practioners.
It also further cements something that I always felt but can be offputting to some people - Julia is an academic language used by academicians. From a software engineering perspective (not computer science, mind you), there is much to be desired.