Hacker News Reader

Comment by john_b | Hacker News Reader

The language may have been grating, but as someone who also comes from more of a scientific computing background, I read this as "I want a language to be a tool that I can use to solve scientific and engineering problems with minimal conceptual overhead due to minding language features." I read it as saying "Finally, a language designed for someone like me," which I also find true personally.

View on HN

The irony is the creators of julia paid attention to all of those computer science things in order to create the language he wanted to use.

"I want a language to be a tool that I can use to solve scientific and engineering problems with minimal conceptual overhead due to minding language features."

Among compiled languages, isn't that Fortran, especially since Fortran 90 on have multidimensional array operations, like Julia, Numpy, and Matlab.

It should read the other way round - Julia, Numpy, especially Matlab have array operations like Fortran 90, since they are designed by people from that background.

The problem with Fortran is interoperabality with other libraries; if you leave scientific computing, you're basically out of luck. Writing a GUI is just not going to happen. It is really fast, but it is also not as easy for prototyping since it is also compiled like C. Finally, Fortran does have the kind of stigma coming from older versions like 77 - and it's still really easy to write REALLY bad and unmaintainable code with it if you're not minding the newer language features. Especially OOP (since Fortran 2003) feels a bit tacked on.

It is of course, but there is a lot of convenience in using an interpreted language with a REPL and a decent standard library.

Exactly - I read it as an expression of a tool designed as a tool, rather than an elegant and intellectually fulfilling exploration of toolness.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com