I hope that we get to the point of having a standard graphics/GUI framework. But in Julia there is no one entity who decides things, because we're not a company. Presumably in the long run the best system will "win," but we're still in a stage of experimentation right now.
If you want to hasten the progress towards consolidation, feel free to roll up your sleeves and start making improvements to your favorite candidate---that's how most of us got started with Julia. Best, --Tim On Saturday, May 10, 2014 02:14:15 PM Klaus-Dieter Bauer 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.
