If I might make a few final constructive comments before this gets closed, I do think we need a “clearer” ecosystem for users. As I’ve come to understand Julia, it tries to have a minimal standard library with only some basic packages likely to have fairly broad applicability. For example, the LinearAlgebra package is part of the stdlib, and contains basic operations such as dot & cross product, eigenvalues, direct solve via \, etc.
So me, as an end-user, I don’t feel the need to go find a NumPy-like package to provide those functionalities. However, LinearAlgebra doesn’t include “advanced” capabilities like Krylov solvers, polynomial fitting, etc., so for those I need to go find a package. And those packages are typically “single-focused” on doing one thing, and that one thing well. It can be a bit of a maze, then, to find a set of packages that provide all the functionality of something like Matlab’s base install, or of SciPy or NumPy.
It would be nice, IMO, if there was a curated list on Julia’s homepage of “user-recommended” packages for different domains. Something similar to what NumPy’s webpage has:
We’ve got a good start on the official Julia webpage with:
But it doesn’t quite help me if I’m a new user wanting to rewrite a Matlab project that does finite-difference method on a DNS fluids problem. I’d propose a “Recommended Ecosystems” page that plainly lists various ecosystems and packages. I know there are sites like Julia Packages, JuliaHub, and Julia.jl, but it would be nice to have a curated list directly on the Julia homepage, that simplifies things for new users.
The second thing that would be nice would be if it were possible to simply install an entire organization of packages. For instance, I’d love to be able to simply do Pkg.add_organization( "JuliaMath" ) and not have to manually add each package. JuliaMath is, in many ways, that “user-curated” ecosystem of packages I’m looking for as a “novice” user. If I want to use the erfc function (that is part of both Matlab and Python standard libraries) I don’t want to go searching for the package, but rather would be nice if JuliaMath were a simple-to-install “catch-all” for standard mathematics capabilities. Then we could tell users “if your project uses advanced mathematics, add the JuliaMath library”.
The last thing I’ll mention is that it might be nice, perhaps, to consider expanding the standard library. Why do I need to add the SpecialFunctions.jl package to have access to gamma, erf, Bessel functions? While I think I understand this is because Julia doesn’t want to “play favorites”, it doesn’t seem like there are any other projects that compete in this area. Plus, it then seems odd that LinearAlgebra is included in the standard library, when that seems like a package that shouldn’t based on my own observations of what are/aren’t included in the standard library. This kind of harkens back to the first point, I find it odd that LinearAlgebra has something as “obscure” to a layperson as a generalized-eigenvalue solver function, but not a conjugate gradient or GMRES solver. It’s odd that while neither Python or C++ include linear algebra in their standard libraries, that Julia does; and while both Python and C++ include “special functions” in their standard libraries, Julia doesn’t. It just all seems very arbitrary (to me).
Anyways, hopefully those were constructive (rather than grievance-airing) and I’m happy to participate in future discussions on those topics (in separate threads?) and contribute to source where I can.