I have to admit that I am quite unhappy with some of the changed features in
Julia version 0.3.0, especially the 'dot' notation. Here are some examples.
Let x be a vector defined as x = [0.1, 0.2, 0.3] . Then typing
julia> 5 + x
WARNING: x::Number + A::Array is deprecated, use x .+ A instead.
but 5 + x is a universal mathematical notation that should be allowed
to be used regardless of any programming language considerations.
On the other hand, both
julia> 5 * x;
julia> 5 .* x;
work without warning. Why is 5 * x not also deprecated?
If I want to write, e.g., Runge's function in a vectorized form,
julia> runge(x) = 1 ./ (1 .+ 5.*x.^2)
then this looks quite ugly and difficult to grasp on first view.
As another example, look at the max / maximum 'dichotomy':
julia> maximum([x, 0.5])
0.5
julia> maximum(x, 0.5)
3-element Array{Float64,1}:
0.1
0.2
0.3
The first answer looks natural, but I have difficulties understanding the
meaning of the second case. On the other hand:
julia> max(x, 0.5)
3-element Array{Float64,1}:
0.5
0.5
0.5
while max(x, [0.5]) will lead to a dimension error, and max([x, 0.5])
to a deprecation warning (which I seem to understand why).
I think all this is quite confusing for someone wanting to use Julia mostly
for technical computing, as the logo promises.
I am sure this has been discussed before, so probably I missed it. Sorry.
