Why is Julia not more popular?

I truly like Julia, both from the perspective of how the language is designed, and the speed at which is undertakes tasks like processing images. I like Python too, its just too slow, and I don’t want to have to vectorize code. Why then is Julia not more popular? Python is ranked in the top 5 most popular languages, this despite the fact that it is often as slow as molasses flowing. Julia is lightning fast. It processes so fast, Python is still thinking about starting to read the data in.

Why are people not flocking to Julia?

• Stability. Since it was launched in 2012, it has had numerous releases. Version 1.0 was finally released in August 2018, and the most recent release in August 2020 is V1.5. Too many small changes and tweaking. It makes one nauseous just thinking about small things in your older code that potentially won’t work. Too many releases. V1.6 is due to be released in on Sept.30, 2020. Crazy.
• Contributors. Methods of open source language development such as Julia are a neat idea. It has supposedly had contributions from over 870 developers worldwide. Ever tried to cook with more than 1-2 people in the kitchen? Just say-in.
• General-purpose. The term general-purpose is tricky. A general-purpose language is essentially one that does everything. Bad move. That’s like saying duct tape is a general-purpose fix-it? Although originally designed for numerical type programming, it can apparently now do low-level systems programming, and web programming. Stop-the-madness.
• Multi-paradigm. It’s procedural, it’s functional, it’s a bit of everything.
• Too large. Although languages like C can be challenging for novice programmers, their core benefit is brevity. Julia is anything but small. Gargantuan is more likely the word. The core of the programming structures is simple and easy to learn, but there is more and more baggage with every version – this is what happens when features keep getting added. Remember what happened to C++.
• No executable. Despite all its abilities, Julia does not generate an executable, which is a bummer.
• Immature packages. Add-ons (yes, there is still a need for these), are not sufficiently mature, or even well maintained. This is related to the lack of users in the field. People aren’t willing to commit time to a library that will hardly be used.
• Error message are still horrible. I thought we might progress here, but for the novice programmer, dealing with the error messages is horrendous. It’s enough to send you running towards Python.
• The name. Why call the language Julia? (there is no specific reason) Why not something more meaningful, like a tribute to one of the great women in computing – Hopper? Easley? Coombs?

Look, I really like Julia. I really love all the embedded math functions, makes things easier than building them from scratch, but are things getting somewhat out of hand? Does a language need to do soooooo much? If I want a low-level systems language, I have C. Maybe the problem is that I’m getting old, I mean I still enjoy coding in Fortran.