r/mit • u/Pampofski • 1d ago

research How much traction has the Julia programming language gained within MIT

I know Julia has not reached escape velocity in many other academic institutions and industries as these organizations still will reach to Python, R, or MATLAB as their first choice tools to tackle their research questions, but I'm wondering if someone has an estimate about what percentage of labs in MIT are using Julia as a major part of their research?

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u/Haywright 1d ago

I've seen it used in several projects, but it also sort of feels like a legacy of a previous generation of grad students. I get the impression a lot of people in the previous few cohorts used it more extensively. I spend a lot of time around tools built with it but don't use it myself. I prefer Python.

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u/EveningCareer8921 1d ago

When I took 18.06 we used Julia (iirc the professor was one of the people who helped develop the language?)

I remember this came up as a preferred programming language for some urops that were advertised

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u/GalaxyOwl13 Course 6-9 1d ago

I have never seen anyone using Julia at MIT, but am mostly involved in machine learning, where Python still rules. In non-ML contexts I’ve used C, Python, MATLAB, and R here. Others’ experiences may be different!