2026-08-14 –, Room 1
Have you ever tried sharing Julia code that computes the Lorenz attractor using DifferentialEquations and visualises it in Makie? I haven't—because the TTFX is unbearable. Users often wait 5+ minutes for compilation during project instantiation, creating an unacceptable first-time experience. What if we could ship precompiled dependencies just like Julia's standard libraries? This is what Jumbo Julia does.
In this talk, I'll explain how Julia distributions work and what's included in Jumbo Julia, including the tradeoffs imposed by package compatibility constraints that can force older versions. I'll demonstrate common workflows and project instantiations to illustrate both capabilities and limitations. Then I'll show you how to create custom distributions for your own package sets. I'll conclude by speculating on how Julia distributions could solve the PkgImage distribution problem in the short term within Pkg itself.
I am a full-stack Julia developer with a Ph.D. in physics from TU Delft, and I enjoy simplifying complex concepts and making the impossible possible. I have thorough experience in Julia, HTTP, QML, cryptographic protocols, and system architectures. Find more about me on janiserdmanis.org.