Julia vs. Python: Which is best for data science?

Among the many use cases Python covers, data analytics has become perhaps the biggest and most significant. The Python ecosystem is loaded with libraries, tools, and applications that make the work of scientific computing and data analysis fast and convenient.

But for the developers behind the Julia language — aimed specifically at “scientific computing, machine learning, data mining, large-scale linear algebra, distributed and parallel computing”—Python isn’t fast or convenient enough. Python represents a trade-off, good for some parts of data analytics work but terrible for others.

What is the Julia language?

Created in 2009 by a four-person team and unveiled to the public in 2012, Julia is meant to address the shortcomings in Python and other languages and applications used for scientific computing and data processing. “We are greedy,” they wrote. They wanted more: 

We want a language that’s open source, with a liberal license. We want the speed of C with the dynamism of Ruby. We want a language that’s homoiconic, with true macros like Lisp, but with obvious, familiar mathematical notation like Matlab. We want something as usable for general programming as Python, as easy for statistics as R, as natural for string processing as Perl, as powerful for linear algebra as Matlab, as good at gluing programs together as the shell. Something that is dirt simple to learn, yet keeps the most serious hackers happy. We want it interactive and we want it compiled.

(Did we mention it should be as fast as C?)

Here are some of the ways Julia implements those aspirations:

• Julia is compiled, not interpreted. For faster runtime performance, Julia is just-in-time (JIT) compiled using the LLVM compiler framework. At its best, Julia can approach or match the speed of C.
• Julia is interactive. Julia includes a REPL (read-eval-print loop), or interactive command line, similar to what Python offers. Quick one-off scripts and commands can be punched right in.
• Julia has a straightforward syntax. Julia’s syntax is similar to Python’s—terse, but also expressive and powerful.
• Julia combines the benefits of dynamic typing and static typing. You can specify types for variables, like “unsigned 32-bit integer.” But you can also create hierarchies of types to allow general cases for handling variables of specific types—for instance, to write a function that accepts integers without specifying the length or signing of the integer. You can even do without typing entirely if it isn’t needed in a particular context.
• Julia can call Python, C, and Fortran libraries. Julia can interface directly with external libraries written in C and Fortran. It’s also possible to interface with Python code by way of the PyCall library, and even share data between Python and Julia.
• Julia supports metaprogramming. Julia programs can generate other Julia programs, and even modify their own code, in a way that is reminiscent of languages like Lisp.
• Julia has a full-featured debugger. Julia 1.1 introduced a debugging suite, which executes code in a local REPL and allows you to step through the results, inspect variables, and add breakpoints in code. You can even perform fine-grained tasks like stepping through a function generated by code.

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