How is this new kid on the block called “Julia”?

Julia is a relatively new language for numerical and statistical analysis. Julia can be used interactively using the provided interpreter in a so called “read-evaluate-print-loop” (repl). Julia functions are compiled using JIT compilation. This combines the advantages of fast interactive development and fast execution of compiled code.

Local version

Julia can be downloaded for free from http://julialang.org. It is either available as commandline tool run from a terminal or in an IDE called Juno. On the Mac installation of both Julia CLI and Juno worked without any problems. On windows there were a few firewall related issues which prevented Juno to connect to Julia.

Julia in the cloud

A very convenient alternative to installing Julia or Juno on your local machine is to point your browser to http://juliabox.org, and either create an account or use your Google drive account. On juliabox one can either work with raw Julia text files or with iPython notebooks.

Syntax

The syntax of Julia is comparable to Matlab or Python.

A first example

A first example of some simple Julia code is shown at: http://charlotte-ngs.github.io/GettingStartedWithJulia/FernandoGarrick2013Notes.html

Enjoy!!