Julia:
is interpreted, but (JIT-) compiled
is high-level and easy to learn
designed so easy to make fast from the start
is fast (~2--3x C speed)
Julia:
has a sophisticated type system
but it is not necessary to talk about types
has multiple dispatch: functions specialised on the types of their arguments
has sophisticated metaprogramming (macros) for generating code programatically
allow the creation of domain-specific languages
Julia:
most of the standard library is implemented in Julia itself
avoids the infamous "two-language problem"
"users are developers"
From the REPL (Read--Eval--Print Loop):
julia
Inside IJulia (IPython interface with Julia kernel):
ipython notebook --profile julia
Inside an IDE, e.g. LightTable + Jewel + Juno/Jupiter; Julia Studio
Julia manual: http://julia.readthedocs.org/en/latest/manual
julia-users mailing list: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/julia-users
;ipython nbconvert Why\ Julia.ipynb --to slides --post serve