Julia Application Builders

Julia is primarily considered to be a "scientific programming language". Quite often, what starts out as "scientific programming" ends up in products meant to be consumed by others. When this happens, these pieces of software end up in "applications", typically with a UI of some sort. This BoF is for those that build these applications, to learn from others, and to discuss what can be done to move the ecosystem forward.

Building applications around a "Julia core" can be done in a variety of ways, hence there are also a variety of solutions. Some applications are shipped "natively", e.g. using GTK.jl, TK.jl, target terminal users, e.g. using Term.jl, or target browser-based environments, e.g. using JSServe.jl, Genie.jl, Pluto.jl, etc. which may in turn end up as "native" applications using Electron.jl.

Even though there is a wide variety of "application targets", most of these packages work in a similar fashion. Said differently, most applications take the form of a Julia process, a process rendering the UI and a means to communicate between the two. A potentially interesting question to try and answer during this BoF is whether there is a need or a desire to arrive at a common base framework to facilitate these types of applications.

We will talk about what people are building, what they are using to build applications around a "Julia core", how these applications are being deployed, and how we may improve Julia's ecosystem with respect to the challenges faced by these "application builders".