JuliaPro is an easy to install prepackaged bundle of Julia which includes a debugger, an integrated development environment, support for interactive notebooks, scientific report generation and literate programming tools. Beyond the pre-installed packages, JuliaPro users also have an option to install and use any package from 4,000+ open source packages, as well as trial versions of several commercial packages. JuliaPro v1.5 brings a major redesign to the product, the biggest since v1.0. This blog describes the motivation behind these changes.
JuliaPro now ships with the General registry, which gives unrestricted access to install all open source packages and upgrade to their latest versions. To make the transition from Julia to JuliaPro easier, we have also stopped creating separate DEPOTPATHs to store JuliaPro packages. Instead, we now use the default Julia DEPOTPATH (i.e <HOME-DIRECTORY>/.julia). This will allow users with both Julia and JuliaPro on their machines to reuse pre-installed packages without downloading them again.
We have stopped shipping the JuliaPro registry. This registry used to be the default, and its purpose was to provide a slower, more stable, upgrade path for packages. However, we found that this causes confusion, and our plan is to provide this functionality via our JuliaTeam product. JuliaPro users will use the General registry by default. In additon we now ship an additional registry called JuliaComputingRegistry. This registry contains private packages from JuliaComputing and partners, such as Pumas, JuliaInXL, MiletusPro, etc. All JuliaPro users can install these private packages for a limited trial, and full versions can be purchased. With the General and JuliaComptingRegistry, JuliaPro v1.5 users will get a seamless experience out of the box.
With JuliaPro v1.5, we now create a custom JuliaPro environment in <HOME-DIRECTORY>/.julia to distinguish it from other default or custom project environments. This ensures that existing Julia users don't lose their default environment when installing JuliaPro. The custom JuliaPro environment is pre-activated during JuliaPro REPL startup. We also make sure the custom environment is tied with the JuliaPro version it's been created with, which makes JuliaPro upgrades hassle free for users. Since JuliaPro now uses the default depot path rather than its own separate path, this ensures that JuliaPro installs can share package downloads with other versions of Julia, while still allowing separate environments.
Finally, we now have a Pumas edition of JuliaPro, available from https://pumas.ai/products/pumas/download. This version of JuliaPro comes bundled with Pumas as well as other frequently used curated packages. Moreover, Pumas is compiled into the Julia system image, ensuring that load times for this package are significantly reduced. Using this version of JuliaPro makes for a much more pleasant experience when working with Pumas and its ecosystem.
We hope these changes make JuliaPro a much more compelling product for all Julia users. We are eager to hear how JuliaPro is working for you and how we can make it better at juliapro@juliacomputing.com.