# Can Julia really be used as a scripting language? (Performance)

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/can-julia-really-be-used-as-a-scripting-language-performance/40384>\
**Category:** Performance\
**Created:** [May 29, 2020, 1:06am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/can-julia-really-be-used-as-a-scripting-language-performance/40384 "2020-05-29T01:06:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 15

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**Author:** ![kevbonham](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kevbonham/32/216165_2.png) [@kevbonham](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kevbonham)\
**Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 2:22am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/can-julia-really-be-used-as-a-scripting-language-performance/40384/15 "2020-05-30T02:22:14Z")

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> [@singpolyma](#):
>
> is fast enough for  
> now especially if there’s hope for it to get even better with time.

On the better with time point, [see here](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/compiler-work-priorities/17623). If you want to read lots more about this, search “time to first plot,” mentioned above, which is a shorthand for this issue (plotting packages are notorious for long compilation times).

But I would also encourage you to explore other workflows. I come from bioinformatics, where everything is a script, so I totally get the inertia. But now I use the REPL and Atom, for most development, and only write scripts for long running precesses where compile time is a tiny fraction. Think about it this way: when you’re coding interactively, use the interactive tools.

A couple workflows have been mentioned here, there are also great ways to use Atom or VS code as development environments. I usually start up Julia first thing, run a script that loads my packages (esp. Revise.jl), get a cup of coffee, and then don’t worry about compilation for the rest of the day.

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