2026-08-12 –, Room 1
This talk considers the features Julia includes, and more importantly, omits, in service of a speedier implementation, as well as how the language might grow in the future.
There are many ways a programming language can be dynamic, but not all them are equal. By retreating from fully dynamic behaviour in a few cases, Julia is able to strike a balance that allows its dynamic features to be used pervasively, rather than only where performance allows.
This talk compares Julia's multiple dispatch mechanism with Common Lisp's, explaining how the "world age" concept enables Julia's compiler to make dispatch dramatically faster, while keeping eval() useful for interactive development. We also cover why Julia's immutable structs are valuable in more ways than only their unmodifiable nature.
Finally, we look at some experimental Julia features that explore the dynamism-vs-speed frontier further, including opaque closures.
Compiler engineer at JuliaHub, Inc.