# Is there a good way to run an interpreted IJulia session?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/is-there-a-good-way-to-run-an-interpreted-ijulia-session/85554>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Created:** [August 9, 2022, 8:39pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/is-there-a-good-way-to-run-an-interpreted-ijulia-session/85554 "2022-08-09T20:39:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kjohnsen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kjohnsen/32/27419_2.png) [@kjohnsen](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kjohnsen)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2022, 8:39pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/is-there-a-good-way-to-run-an-interpreted-ijulia-session/85554/1 "2022-08-09T20:39:16Z")

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Hello all,

I know about JuliaInterpreter and things like Revise to avoid recompilation for package development and DaemonMode to achieve a similar end for script development, but a use case where time-to-first-plot has been especially frustrating for me has been in a Jupyter or a Pluto notebook. Here, I’m trying things out in an exploratory/learning setting, running little chunks of code (not a script) and I don’t want/need the overhead of setting up a package.

It’s these times where I feel most frustration compared to Python. I figure an easy solution would be to just interpret rather than compile for these settings. I see that JuliaInterpreter has an `@interpret` macro, but it obviously gets old typing that on every line. Is there a way for an ijulia kernel to interpret everything by default? I imagine this wouldn’t be too hard to implement, but I’m wondering if it already exists or if this would be unusably slow or something.

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**Author:** ![SteffenPL](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/steffenpl/32/206270_2.png) [@SteffenPL](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/SteffenPL)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2022, 8:02am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/is-there-a-good-way-to-run-an-interpreted-ijulia-session/85554/2 "2022-08-10T08:02:04Z")

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I’m not sure if the following things are new to you or if they work:

- My option of choice would be to use PackageCompiler.jl, see for example this talk which also gives more information on how in general speed-up package loading [PackageCompiler and Static Compilation - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gHYrZ4QWZs)
- Another option which is closer to the idea of just `@interpret` everything would be to install a new Julia kernel via `installkernel(“Julia nodeps”, “--compile=min --optimize=0”)`. This will reduce the amount of compilation.

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**Author:** ![kjohnsen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kjohnsen/32/27419_2.png) [@kjohnsen](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kjohnsen)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2022, 3:14pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/is-there-a-good-way-to-run-an-interpreted-ijulia-session/85554/3 "2022-08-10T15:14:49Z")

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## My experience with PackageCompiler

Yes, I’m aware of PackageCompiler and sysimages, and I’ve given it a good try, but it’s still a pain. I thought the VS Code extension would save the day by making it easy to generate a SysImage for a given environment, but it breaks for an incremental build, meaning I have to redo the entire build every time I want to add a package. And that’s a real downer, given that the compilation takes so long (~10-15 minutes for me). Even if all of this were working seamlessly, it’s still a couple more steps than what I have to do in Python–just add a package and start using it interactively.

## Trying interpreted Julia for interactive use

TLDR: doesn’t look good 😢

I just tried the `--compile=min --optimize=0` suggestion, entered `using GLMakie` and right off the bat I needed to wait to precompile. I tried a fresh environment instead, `] add GLMakie`. One hour later, precompilation was still not done.

I tried `--compile=no` and that seemed to be incompatible with precompiled packages, spitting out a bunch of `code missing for ...` errors. So I tried a fresh environment, `] add Plots` and precompilation took nearly 15 minutes. Finally, I tried `plot([1, 2, 3])` and after still getting a whole bunch of `code missing` complaints, the plot window shows up about three seconds later—not horrible, but still a bit slow for interactive use. This seems to be about the same speed as running `@interpret plot([1, 2, 3])`. So I guess that means this works, but with `code missing` complaints and a bit slow.

Actually, looks like running Julia normally (with JIT), pulling up a plot window (post-compilation) takes about 2 seconds. So I guess the slowness is due to Plots rather than the interpreter. I tried using GLMakie instead, which does pull up the window instantly after being JIT-compiled. So how fast does it do that when interpreted? It’s been a minute and the window is not responding, with no plot showing up. Same thing for `--compile=no`, `--compile=min`, and `@interpret`. Basically, looks like my idea won’t do much good if basic packages like Makie are unusably slow/broken when interpreted 😢

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**Author:** ![SteffenPL](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/steffenpl/32/206270_2.png) [@SteffenPL](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/SteffenPL)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2022, 5:32pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/is-there-a-good-way-to-run-an-interpreted-ijulia-session/85554/4 "2022-08-10T17:32:16Z")

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> [@kjohnsen](#):
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> meaning I have to redo the entire build every time I want to add a package.

You could avoid this with `Pkg.pin`, e.g. precompile those packages which take time (usually the plotting package) and then pin the version. This way you don’t need to recompile each time…

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**Author:** ![kjohnsen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kjohnsen/32/27419_2.png) [@kjohnsen](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kjohnsen)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2022, 8:25pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/is-there-a-good-way-to-run-an-interpreted-ijulia-session/85554/5 "2022-08-10T20:25:51Z")

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I may be wrong, but if I remember right the problem wasn’t that adding a package changed the versions of previously compiled packages. Maybe it is, though.