My first post on Julia

By: Alvaro "Blag" Tejada Galindo

Re-posted from: http://blagrants.blogspot.com/2014/05/my-first-post-on-julia.html

So…what Julia? Just another nice programming language -;)

According to it’s creators…

Julia is a high-level, high-performance dynamic programming language for technical computing, with syntax that is familiar to users of other technical computing environments.

I just started learning it a couple of days ago…and I must say that I really like it…it has a Python like syntax so I felt comfortable from the very start…

Of course…it’s kind of a brand new language, so things are being added and fixed while we speak…but the community is growing and I’m glad to be amongst it’s “early” supporters -:)

What I did right after I read the documentation and watch a couple of videos was to simply port one my old Python applications to Julia…the app was “LCD Numbers” which ask for a number and return it printed like in LCD format…

This is the Python code…

LCD_Numbers.py
global line1, line2, line3

line1 = ""
line2 = ""
line3 = ""

zero = {1: ' _ ', 2: '| | ', 3: '|_| '}
one = {1: ' ', 2: '| ', 3: '| '}
two = {1: ' _ ', 2: ' _| ', 3: '|_ '}
three = {1: '_ ', 2: '_| ', 3: '_| '}
four = {1: ' ', 2: '|_| ', 3: ' | '}
five = {1: ' _ ', 2: '|_ ', 3: ' _| '}
six = {1: ' _ ', 2: '|_ ', 3: '|_| '}
seven = {1: '_ ', 2: ' | ', 3: ' | '}
eight = {1: ' _ ', 2: '|_| ', 3: '|_| '}
nine = {1: ' _ ', 2: '|_| ', 3: ' _| '}

num_lines = {0: zero, 1: one, 2: two, 3: three, 4: four,
5: five, 6: six, 7: seven, 8: eight, 9: nine}

def Lines(number):
global line1, line2, line3
line1 += number.get(1, 0)
line2 += number.get(2, 0)
line3 += number.get(3, 0)

number = str(input("\nEnter a number: "))
length = len(number)
for i in range(0, length):
Lines(num_lines.get(int(number[i:i+1]), 0))

print ("\n")
print line1
print line2
print line3
print ("\n") 

And this is in turn…the Julia version of it…

LCD_Numbers.jl
zero = [1=> " _  ", 2=> "| | ", 3=> "|_| "]
one = [1=> " ", 2=> "| ", 3=> "| "]
two = [1=> " _ ", 2=> " _| ", 3=> "|_ "]
three = [1=> "_ ", 2=> "_| ", 3=> "_| "]
four = [1=> " ", 2=> "|_| ", 3=> " | "]
five = [1=> " _ ", 2=> "|_ ", 3=> " _| "]
six = [1=> " _ ", 2=> "|_ ", 3=> "|_| "]
seven = [1=> "_ ", 2=> " | ", 3=> " | "]
eight = [1=> " _ ", 2=> "|_| ", 3=> "|_| "]
nine = [1=> " _ ", 2=> "|_| ", 3=> " _| "]

num_lines = [0=> zero, 1=> one, 2=> two, 3=> three, 4=> four,
5=> five, 6=> six, 7=> seven, 8=> eight, 9=> nine]

line = ""; line1 = ""; line2 = ""; line3 = ""

function Lines(number, line1, line2, line3)
line1 *= number[1]
line2 *= number[2]
line3 *= number[3]
line1, line2, line3
end

println("Enter a number: "); number = chomp(readline(STDIN))
len = length(number)
for i in [1:len]
line = Lines(num_lines[parseint(string(number[i]))],line1,line2,line3)
line1 = line[1]; line2 = line[2]; line3 = line[3]
end

println(line1)
println(line2)
println(line3 * "\n")

As you can see…the code looks somehow similar…but of course…I got rid of those ugly global variables…and used some of the neat Julia features, like multiple value return and variable definition on one line… If you want to see the output…here it is…

Of course…this is just a test…things are going to become interesting when I port some R code into Julia and run some speed comparisons -;)

Greetings,

Blag.
Development Culture.