Juliacall and small binaries?

croberts
Mon, 14 Jul 2025 14:53:18 +0000
General Usage

With the imminent release of v1.12, I’m wondering how small binary compilation might subsequently facilitate Julia integration into non-Julia codebases? Obviously, one could write wrapper packages in [R] or Python, which call binaries compiled using Julia, and then load those packages into the Python, [R] package/script. But could there be a more direct route, integrating Julia code into the python or r codebase?

I’m imagining a juliatrim’‘’ ‘’’ code block that checks if the relevant compiled files already exist for the given architecture, directly calling those binaries (without requiring a Julia installation on the computer). If the binaries do not exist, then it calls Julia to compile to specified architectures, saving to the project folder under some (modifiable) convention and then calls the binaries. Thus, a team member who does have Julia can run the compilation and push the binaries. Then, team members who do not program in Julia and have no interest in installing Julia can seamlessly use functions written in Julia where these functions are helpful for adding performant features.

Something like this would provide the most seamless way to, eventually, grab share from other languages. Python or [R] codebases can persist while an increasing share of the code itself is written in Julia. Eventually, with enough of the code written in Julia itself, teams will opt to ditch what has become an unnecessary Python wrapper. It’s a gradualist approach that does not require forcing users into an all-or-nothing refactor, slowly habituating teams to a new language.

3 posts - 2 participants