Latest thoughts on the issue: https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/524#issuecomment-49914439
On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 10:48 AM, Stefan Karpinski <[email protected]> wrote: > I definitely agree that the current status is suboptimal. Lord only knows > I've spent a lot of time thinking about ways to fix the slow global scope > issue. Many but by no means all of these thoughts are in the issues Jacob > linked to. If we figure out a solution that seems to be the right way to do > it, it will be a really good day. Until then, it seems to me that the point > of view that it's a bad thing to get a 32x speedup with very little effort > or change is a lousy way to look at things. A lot of effort has been put > into allowing that 32x speedup. Not coincidentally, 32x is about how much > slower Python is for this kind of code; Matlab, R and Octave are slower. > > I may have woken up on the wrong side of bed this morning (actually, I'm > sure of that – I should probably stop answering emails), and I do apologize > for being sarcastic or snarky about this. It's frustrating when so much > work has been put into making it *possible* for a high-level dynamic > language to run this fast and then the main commentary is about how it's > not always that fast. It is possible to write slow code in any language – > figuring out how to make your code fast is a learning process in every > language except the ones where it can't be done. > > > On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 10:18 AM, Kevin Squire <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 9:38 AM, Arnaud Amiel <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> As suggested by a few of you, I put everything in a function and now it >>> runs in 1/4 s, that is nearly 32 x improvement for 'no change' that is one >>> of the aspects I don't like in julia. >>> >> >> I've used Julia for a couple of years now, and am quite used to it, but I >> very much agree with this sentiment. I recently introduced Julia to a >> colleague, and he ran into exactly this issue--that timing direct commands >> vs. the same commands in a function produce the same results with very >> different timings. >> >> Having used and contributed to Julia for a while, I have a reasonably >> good understanding of why this is the case and why it hasn't been fixed >> (and might not be for a while). But I've often found it challenging to >> convey this to others (especially those coming from languages where types >> are often hidden, like Matlab). >> >> While I know this is on the radar of the main developers, a search didn't >> yield an issue for better optimization of REPL inputs. Is there one that I >> missed? Should there be? >> >> Cheers, >> Kevin >> > >
