While the patch did not resolve the package manager issue, your response certainly gives reason to hope :)
Are there thoughts on standard GUI components though? For the data-analysis use-case having a default GUI environment included beyond REPLs would certainly help in converting MATLAB users. Though I still feel, that Matlabs arguably limiting "files in working directory = functions" approach provides a distinct advantage for that usecase. 2014-05-10 14:42 GMT+02:00 Tony Kelman <[email protected]>: > Julia's still pretty new and under very heavy development. We all agree > with your sentiment that distributing a set of commonly-useful packages > along with the binary installation makes a lot of sense. I think there's an > issue for that, it's on the roadmap as it were - it might be entirely > doable within the next version or two of Julia, stay tuned. > > Hopefully the bug you ran into that was causing trouble for Julia's > package manager on Windows 8 is now resolved. Once you can use Pkg.add(), I > think you'll come around to some of the things Julia has going for it over > Matlab, despite the decades of head-start Matlab development had, and the > enormous resources of thousands of Mathworks employees and millions in > revenue behind it, and the difference in price :). Package manager speed > and better discoverability and distributing common packages along with > Julia binaries are acknowledged deficiencies that Julia needs work on. > Solutions will come. > > > On Saturday, May 10, 2014 5:14:15 AM UTC-7, kdb wrote: > >> @Isaiah Norton >> >> Sorry, when rewriting my post I forgot to include that I know the >> bugreport. By now a patch has been committed, but I don't know if I'll have >> the time to set up a build environment for testing it before the next >> binary pre-release. >> >> @Tony Kelman >> >> Summing it up: For each of the points a solution exists but none of them >> are treated as core part of the system and a new user would have to >> *find* them and install them separately first -- main issue being the >> "find" part, especially once there are multiple tools that seem to fulfill >> the same purpose. >> >> That's not something someone, who just needs to get data analysis done, >> wants to bother with, so they'll likely stick with MATLAB. Having a default >> setup of such tools prepackaged and prominently promoted through the Julia >> home-page (e.g. as a separate download variant) would likely help getting >> such users into the community. Even for me as a technically inclined user, >> worrying about extra packages and tools from the get go is a big deterrent >> to trying a new tool. When the typical end-user compares solutions, he will >> likely compare the freshly installed state without any extra stuff and >> there MATLAB would have a HUGE advantage. >> >> >> 2014-05-10 5:41 GMT+02:00 Isaiah Norton <[email protected]>: >> >>> The specific issue mentioned #4 is known: https://github.com/ >>> JuliaLang/julia/issues/5574 >>> Unfortunately I can't fully reproduce it locally (no Windows 8.1) and >>> the hint of a lead that I found hasn't really panned out (yet, but I think >>> it's the right direction). If anyone (a) has this problem and (b) is >>> willing to do a debugging session over IRC and/or TeamViewer, that would be >>> really great. >>> >>> >>> On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 11:32 PM, Tony Kelman <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> 1. There's Julia Studio by Forio, Julia-specific plugins for IPython, >>>> Sublime Text, and Light Table, as well as a few native-Julia IDE's (using >>>> Gtk or OpenGL or other toolkits) being worked on by various people. >>>> >>>> 2. https://github.com/malmaud/Autoreload.jl might be one solution for >>>> this? >>>> >>>> 3. Don't think so, but I could be wrong. Discoverability and good >>>> documentation across the package ecosystem is a tough problem, there are >>>> some ideas and experiments floating around but no universal great solution >>>> yet AFAIK. >>>> >>>> 4. I feel your pain regarding the brokenness of package management in >>>> other languages on Windows. Yes, work is being done. A number of packages >>>> are nicely set up to download any binary dependencies automatically on >>>> Windows, I hope we can cover everything over time. It's a bit challenging >>>> since most package developers don't use Windows very often if at all, but >>>> there's usually no technical impediment to setting things up in Julia so >>>> they Just Work (tm). Make noise and flag issues when things don't work on >>>> Windows. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Friday, May 9, 2014 8:21:32 AM UTC-7, kdb wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Reading about julia, I came to quickly like the language. Everyday use >>>>> however would be more about quick-and-dirty data analysis, so some >>>>> questions surfaced regarding usability for non-programming usecases, >>>>> specifically in MS Windows environments. Some of these expectations have >>>>> been set by MATLAB, though I used it only shortly during a voluntary >>>>> lecture roughly 7 years ago. >>>>> >>>>> *1. A GUI for interactive use?* >>>>> >>>>> While the REPL that comes with Julia 0.3.0 works perfectly fine on >>>>> Windows, MATLABs GUI makes it easier to just dive into the work. >>>>> User-defined variables are shown, and can be manipulated with the mouse >>>>> and >>>>> it comes with a builtin editor for quick-and-dirty scripts, when the REPL >>>>> alone doesn't cut it anymore. >>>>> >>>>> While the *help* and *apropos* functions are great, a GUI interface >>>>> would help, mostly because it smoothes the learning curve for beginners. >>>>> >>>>> *2. Quick-and-dirty scripts?* >>>>> >>>>> In MATLAB, you can just create *.m* files in the working directory, >>>>> which then are treated as function definitions that can be easily modified >>>>> at any time and, as far as I've read, function definitions are updated >>>>> automatically when the file is changed. Does Julia provide such facilities >>>>> for interactive developement/data analysis? Note that already having to >>>>> type something like *reload mymodule.jl* would already be a >>>>> disadvantage. >>>>> >>>>> *3. Auto-Import and global search?* >>>>> >>>>> Is it possible to just write *somemodule.somefunction(x)* rather than >>>>> explicitly importing the module first? And does e.g. *apropos(string)* >>>>> search >>>>> globally all installed modules, maybe including user files? Both would >>>>> help >>>>> a new user in exploring the possibilities of the environment. >>>>> >>>>> *4. Windows-compatible package management?* >>>>> >>>>> As a prime example, currently *Pkg.update(), Pkg.add(...)* are broken >>>>> on Windows 8. For some reason, *git* is not able to send DNS when >>>>> called from within Julia; The bug is being worked on, but it illustrates >>>>> an >>>>> issue I have found across the module management systems I tried, be it >>>>> Perl >>>>> (CPAN), or Python (easy_install, pip): They tend to not work reliably on >>>>> Windows. Is work being done to make the prospects in that regard better >>>>> for >>>>> Julia? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I'm asking these questions not only out of personal interest, but also >>>>> because I think that they might be important for convincing less-technical >>>>> users to give Julia an honest try and thus to spread basic knowledge of >>>>> the >>>>> language. >>>>> >>>> >>> >>
