Juliacon 2024

At JuliaCon Local Eindhoven 2023, we've argued that Julia creates the "1.5 language problem". What's the "1.5 language problem"? Well, Julia has been advertised as a language that can be used for rapid high-level prototyping but also for very fast and efficient low-level code. However, while both aspects can be achieved with Julia code, the necessary coding requirements and styles are very different.

The goal of last year's talk has been to initiate a discussion--and numerous reactions show that a discussion has been initiated indeed. It has been the most watched talk on YouTube from the conference [1], and it has created long discussions on the Julia Discourse [2] and Reddit [3].

Today, we recap and refine our original arguments. Then, we will analyze and summarize the discussion that we've observed online. Reflecting on the talk and the online discussion, we will present some ideas and suggestions to where to take this from here. In particular, we will argue that the different styles of Julia programming can be thought of as lying on a spectrum and that a (standardized?) visual guide used in presentations, tutorials, etc. can help a reader identify what sort of expectations they should make about runtime and extendability. Furthermore, we rally a call to arms to create more tutorials that help learners iteratively taking their code bases from the prototyping spectrum to the pedal-to-the-medal speed spectrum.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUJFd-rEa0k&list=PLP8iPy9hna6Tp3QV4akXAd23_O5Vjm_e2
[2] https://discourse.julialang.org/t/does-julia-create-a-1-5-language-problem/107984
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/Julia/comments/18nyxew/michael_tiemann_julia_solves_the_2_language/