IMO, if Julia lacks the necessary tooling, don't over-advertise it. When I say the lack of static compilation is a design problem, I mean such a critical feature should be in v1.0. Without it, many common tasks in other languages become difficult in Julia. For language adoption, you often only have one chance. If you push someone away, it is much harder to win them back.
IMO, you are overestimating how big a deal static compilation is. Yes, there are usecases where it's important, but acting like a language shouldn't tag version 1.0 without static compilation just sounds ignorant and self centred.
This kind of comment just enforces the defensive perception towards the community. He clearly stated that it was just his opinion. Why not just point out that "common tasks" always refers to each own's bubble?
He says it's his opinion, but then states that the language shouldn't have tagged version 1.0 without it, and that people should not advertise julia because it's such a important feature.
I totally get that there are workflows that Julia is inappropriate for, but when someone says that a tool shouldn't be released because it doesn't target their workflow, I really don't know what to call that other than blindingly self centred.
Why is static compilation such a major feature for large-scale differential equation solving? That's what I advertise Julia as good for. Probabilistic programming as well. Etc.
Static compilation is not needed for numeric computing which Julia is great at. However, Julia is advertised as a general purpose language, which IMO is obvious in your "What is Julia?" section. You pose Julia as a mighty language for everything and your supporters think this way, too. I have had conversations with multiple Julia supporters who thought Julia ought to replace python and even C. When people like jampekka pointed out Julia lacks necessary features to make this happen, these supporters got defensive and made absurd claims beyond their domain of knowledge.
Ah yes, Python, the famously statically compiled general-purpose programming language :p
More seriously though, just because some language may be considered "general purpose" doesn't mean it's the best language for everything, or should replace other languages outside of whichever particular applications where it excels.
