Learn to use Julia as a tool for research, and solve problems of genuine interest—like modeling the course of a pandemic—in this practical, hands-on introduction to the language. The Julia programming language is acclaimed in scientific circles for its unparalleled ease, interactivity, and speed. Practical Julia is a comprehensive introduction to the language, making it accessible even if you’re new to programming. Julia is a fairly new programming language. It emerged into the public sphere in 2012 after two and a half years of research by four computer scientists at MIT. Julia’s creators explained why they needed to create a new language: they were “greedy.” There were already languages that were fast, such as C and Fortran. They were well suited to writing programs that ran on giant supercomputers to simulate the weather or design airplanes. But their syntax was not the friendliest; programs in these languages demanded a certain amount of ceremony. And they didn’t provide an interactive experience; one could not improvise and explore at the terminal, but had to submit to an edit-compile-run discipline. Dive in with a thorough guide to Julia’s syntax, data types, and best practices, then transition to craft solutions for challenges in physics, statistics, biology, mathematics, scientific machine learning, and more.