# Future directions of Julia

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269>\
**Category:** Community\
**Created:** [September 8, 2020, 2:21pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269 "2020-09-08T14:21:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 6

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**Author:** ![weymouth](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/weymouth/32/15839_2.png) [@weymouth](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/weymouth)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 7:51pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/102 "2020-09-14T19:51:55Z")

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Dream big Chris!

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**Author:** ![anon92994695](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@anon92994695](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/anon92994695)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 9:43pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/103 "2020-09-14T21:43:35Z")

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Maybe there are people in the community who prefer Julia not to be adopted by industry and feel it should only be used for research purposes. I don’t know - just figured I’d put that parenthetical statement there to be political.

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**Author:** ![ChrisRackauckas](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/chrisrackauckas/32/77_2.png) [@ChrisRackauckas](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ChrisRackauckas)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 11:28pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/104 "2020-09-14T23:28:04Z")

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> [@weymouth](#):
>
> Dream big Chris!

I don’t know if I’m joking or serious either, but it’s good to have goals.

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**Author:** ![Azamat](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/azamat/32/6892_2.png) [@Azamat](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Azamat)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 12:59am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/105 "2020-09-15T00:59:06Z")

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Is there an issue tracking these (maybe with v2.0 tag)?

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**Author:** ![kristoffer.carlsson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kristoffer.carlsson/32/22_2.png) [@kristoffer.carlsson](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kristoffer.carlsson)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 6:23am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/106 "2020-09-15T06:23:55Z")

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There’s a few related ones:

[https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/35899](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/35899)  
[https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/30945](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/30945)

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**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 6:41am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/107 "2020-09-15T06:41:21Z")

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> [@Zach\_Christensen](#):
>
> unique indexing at an axis level

Can you explain what that is?

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**Author:** ![Elrod](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/elrod/32/22461_2.png) [@Elrod](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Elrod)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2020, 9:25am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/108 "2020-09-15T09:25:03Z")

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He created the following PR to ArrayInterface where he explains and implements some of those ideas:  
[https://github.com/SciML/ArrayInterface.jl/pull/70](https://github.com/SciML/ArrayInterface.jl/pull/70)

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**Author:** ![mbauman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mbauman/32/31082_2.png) [@mbauman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mbauman)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2020, 4:33pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/109 "2020-09-16T16:33:53Z")

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13 posts were split to a new topic: [Towards improving community diversity](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/towards-improving-community-diversity/46717)

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**Author:** ![mbauman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mbauman/32/31082_2.png) [@mbauman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mbauman)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2020, 3:49pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/110 "2020-09-16T15:49:44Z")

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Let’s keep this thread focused on future directions and changes to the language itself.

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**Author:** ![aachener](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/aachener/32/18112_2.png) [@aachener](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aachener)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2020, 6:06am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/111 "2020-09-18T06:06:49Z")

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That’s definitely better one.

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**Author:** ![JeffreySarnoff](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/jeffreysarnoff/32/1980_2.png) [@JeffreySarnoff](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/JeffreySarnoff)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 8:09am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/112 "2020-09-26T08:09:47Z")

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Every few years I approach my most missed, most hoped-for, broadly coopting want for Julia: That the strengths now well painted within our language be applied elegantly to realize GUIs just work. To be constructed with ease, cooperatively and collaboratively, performant with aplomb and beauty.

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**Author:** ![oheil](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/oheil/32/220745_2.png) [@oheil](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/oheil)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 8:50am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/113 "2020-09-26T08:50:06Z")

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Together with creating an easy-put-together, easy-to-install, stand-alone application.

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**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 9:16am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/114 "2020-09-26T09:16:04Z")

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> [@JeffreySarnoff](#):
>
> GUIs just work. To be constructed with ease, cooperatively and collaboratively, performant with aplomb and beauty.

To be fair, is there a language which does this? I find nontrivial GUI programming tedious in all languages I know.

Not saying that Julia cannot do better, just that it’s something which will require quite a bit of work.

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**Author:** ![oheil](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/oheil/32/220745_2.png) [@oheil](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/oheil)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 9:18am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/115 "2020-09-26T09:18:31Z")

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> To be fair, is there a language which does this?

Yes, I would say MS Visual Studio with C# is that.

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**Author:** ![lobingera](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/lobingera/32/211_2.png) [@lobingera](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/lobingera)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 9:38am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/116 "2020-09-26T09:38:00Z")

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Well, if you drop performant tcl/tk and pygtk are actually frameworks on ‘slow’ interpreted languages which can do a lot of non-trival stuff more or less out-of-the-box - cross platform.

But i was about to write a similar commen, GUI is never easy. I’m doing GUI (it’s not my major) since Intution/AmigaOS with some emphasis on X11/Xaw and GTK in mix of languages and yes, you usually need to learn some concept and apply them in the respective language.

I sometime think, that julia with multiple-dispatch could make some easier API, as you just call an operation like “pack” and you don’t need to specialize to Button in Box in Grid in Layout in Window in Screen.

But in general this belongs to infrastructure and the incentives to solve this for julia are low.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![JeffreySarnoff](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/jeffreysarnoff/32/1980_2.png) [@JeffreySarnoff](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/JeffreySarnoff)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 6:59pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/117 "2020-09-26T18:59:00Z")

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> To be fair, is there a language which does this?

Yes, [Self](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_(programming_language)), [Squeak](http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/30), [Snap!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap!_(programming_language)_) each provide this [with Morphic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphic_(software)).

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**Author:** ![PetrKryslUCSD](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/petrkryslucsd/32/215825_2.png) [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 7:28pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/118 "2020-09-26T19:28:40Z")

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Limited to Windows, ain’t it?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![oheil](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/oheil/32/220745_2.png) [@oheil](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/oheil)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 7:48pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/119 "2020-09-26T19:48:35Z")

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Don’t have self experience but I heard that Mono+C#+.NET does a good job on linux.

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**Author:** ![juliohm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/juliohm/32/215266_2.png) [@juliohm](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/juliohm)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 7:53pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/120 "2020-09-26T19:53:03Z")

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> [@anon92994695](#):
>
> I’ve tried at my current job to get the language adopted. I’ve failed. Politics are too heavy, and yes most people prefer to use Python or even Matlab for what I’d describe as “comfort”.

This is the most painful part for me. No matter how much we perceive the benefits of the language in our work and research, most people are just in a mindset of never switching out from Python. In the case of Matlab it is super easy to convince people that Julia is the way to go given the associated costs.

If people can’t feel it in their pockets, they won’t even try, unfortunately. I think this is correlated to the fact that the Julia community started as a group of curious PhDs willing to explore. Most people aren’t in this mindset and I couldn’t figure out a strategy that is effective in my own lab yet.

Are you aware of any company in which people get bonus to try explore new languages? I could borrow some ideas…

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**Author:** ![anon92994695](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@anon92994695](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/anon92994695)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 8:32pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/future-directions-of-julia/46269/121 "2020-09-26T20:32:18Z")

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I can’t get people to switch from matlab. The Simulink and other packages absolutely dominate all other competitor offerings. But even some of the people not using simulink, say, doing data science, won’t switch because they know their packages and they often don’t know either the science or the programming - so they’d be in real trouble switching… Most bosses I’ve had see a 1k expense for a tool to be throw away money, it’s only once they start to approach 10k that they start needing serious reasons for it. Small tech. starts ups running single screen, nucs, ubuntu, etc though feel the costs heavily. But they also tend to go pure python(interview experience only).

I have not worked for any company that encouraged people to explore new languages. Jeese it’s hard to even negotiate time for personal/skill development (failed to do that as well)… Even back in grad school: some groups used Matlab, some used R, and never the two shall mix. I would be interested to hear about companies doing that though.

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