November 2016: Falling in Love with Julia

I remember buying my first cell phone back in 1994. It was a trusty old Siemens— yes, Siemens did make phones once upon a time, and yes, this phone was the epitome of a first-generation cell phone: large clunky numbers; a matchbox-size, luminous green screen; and the weight of a house brick. But boy, I loved that phone, even though initially it turned out to be a pointless acquisition. You see, cellular technology was in its nascence back in South Africa more than two decades ago and no one had my number. In fact no one else even had a phone. To say that my phone didn’t ring for the first three months is no exaggeration — it literally lay silent, except for when I phoned it periodically from my landline to ensure that I hadn’t bought a dud. Also, calls between cell phones and from landlines to cell phones were prohibitively expensive. And so, naturally, adoption was slow. 

The Viber app is a similar story. Like WhatsApp, it was released in 2010, and featured arguably better functionality — it supported video calls for example — but for some reason WhatsApp became the communication app of choice in the UK, and by so doing relegated text messages (SMSs) to the scrapheap of history. Maybe it has something to do with WhatsApp being born in California, while Viber’s roots are in Tel Aviv, although I doubt whether consumers these days really care about where a technology is developed. I don’t know of a single friend of mine in the UK or South Africa who doesn’t use WhatsApp. Even my Mum uses it! Anyway, whatever the reason, Viber wasn’t able to establish a critical mass of support, while WhatsApp did, culminating in its acquisition by Facebook in February 2014 for just under $20 billion. 

Which brings me to Julia and Anthony Malakian’s outstanding feature about this nascent programming language. That Julia has a bright future is without doubt — our industry will absolutely fall in love with it (her). However, the more pertinent question on everyone’s lips right now is when Julia’s support will reach a critical mass, and the extent of that love affair. Will it be a secret liaison conducted discretely behind closed doors, or will it be played out in front of the world’s media? Perhaps, for the time being, it will be the former, until her proponents are able to offer the same depth and breadth of support and ancillary services enjoyed by the industry’s most popular programming languages.     

As Tony concludes in his feature, “it takes a village to raise a child.” And while Julia’s community might not yet resemble a fully fledged village, it certainly features a cluster of dwellings that might, in some circles, qualify as a growing hamlet.