

JuliaCon 2015 Preview - mlubin
http://julialang.org/blog/2015/05/juliacon-preview/

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idunning
If anyone has any questions about this post or the conference, fire away!

Last year's first conference was a big success in my opinion. Videos are
available at [http://juliacon.org/2014/](http://juliacon.org/2014/), although
the speakers weren't mic'ed so the sound isn't so great - we'll be fixing that
this year.

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pbowyer
This looks fantastic! Are there any plans for a European conference?

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one-more-minute
There's definitely some interest in holding a conference from the community
over here – we'll probably have a go at gauging general interest and forming
more concrete plans soon.

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merqurio
That would be great !

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elliott34
Is anyone on HN using Julia professionally?

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Argentum01
I used it professionally from 2012 - 2014, and I know of about a half a dozen
companies either developing things in it or supporting it as part of saas
offerings. Not that many, but each group that I know of made the switch after
extensive reviews of other language options, and they've all had positive
experiences so far.

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transfire
Is anyone talking about the future of the module system?

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idunning
No, I don't think so. I don't think there is much that is going to change with
modules in the future, or at least I'm unaware of any open issues about it.
What did you have in mind? The hackathon on Wednesday will be a particularly
good time to bounce around your ideas, and is free to attend.

~~~
transfire
Because the current system
([http://julia.readthedocs.org/en/latest/manual/modules/](http://julia.readthedocs.org/en/latest/manual/modules/))
is just sad. It's the one thing that has kept me from fully embracing Julia.

I would love to go if I were any where in the neighborhood. But alas I'm over
a thousand miles away.

~~~
sgt101
Some people I've talked to have complained that modules aren't objects, and
that throwing away the coupling of types and reuse files is "abandoning 30
years of learning" and that "I don't trust myself to be disciplined"

I think that these arguments are not strong! But what would be useful would be
some detailed critical thinking on the topic.

My take is that thinking about where you put multiple dispatch parameterized
type matched code components is actually a real challenge. The module
structure chosen for a library requires "artful" approaches. Perhaps a good
workshop on the topic would yield a guide or an approach to making these
decisions? Perhaps a labeling system could be evolved to provide metadata for
modules better enabling reuse and promoting discover-ability ? Perhaps static
analysis of a code base might be provided that gives recommendations (and
assistance) for creating good decompositions and associations?

~~~
sgt101
I can't reply to Porker! But.. in reply, yes, I agree, critical analysis is
horribly lacking in science atm.

Maybe this is something a plenary could do well - what are the assumptions
that underpin some of the things that we are doing? Can we challenge those?
Can we pick out the complaints/problems that people outside have about what we
are doing?

That's hard for any community to do...

BTW. for the record, I learned years ago that objects did not for a good
modularity make...

