Exploring the use of quarto

[sje30]

Exploring the use of quarto for Julia... there is a dependency on the JuliaCall package.

I tried this and it seems to still be an issue today on Mac:

https://github.com/Non-Contradiction/JuliaCall/issues/190

[sje30]

cc: @jmb280cam

[jmbyrne]

Haven't found any problems with running it yet, although getting it going was a bit of a hassle as it has a lot of dependencies that it doesn't make very clear.

I find using it a bit cumbersome though, since you have to edit it in plaintext, instead of adding and editing cells as Pluto or Jupyter would have you do. You can run cells, which copies their contents into the REPL and runs them, so code iteration is possible but suffers from the same issue as Jupyter where large amounts of code may need to be manually rerun every time a change is made.

At the moment, I like the idea of the format, and I wish it had a "friendly" development environment like Jupyter and particularly Pluto do.

[jmbyrne]

Actually, turns out there is a visual editor, it just took some finding. Will give it a go and report back

[jmbyrne]

I've managed to convert the previous Pluto notebook into Quarto/Jupyter format (the Jupyter being directly generated from the Quarto). It's imperfect as I haven't really adapted the notebook for Quarto, there are definitely some stylistic choices that I would have made differently, but overall I think it looks like a genuine option for us to use.

@sje30 Can you have a look at the files I've uploaded, and see how they display for you?

Next step I think will be trying to write something new entirely in Quarto.

[sje30]

Will take a look.

re: "getting it going was a bit of a hassle as it has a lot of dependencies that it doesn't make very clear." is there anything we can feed back to quarto to make it more explicit what is required?

Was this on windows? If so, I can also try installing it on my windows machine.

[jmbyrne]

This was on Windows, maybe you should give it a go installing it to see how easy it is from their information. I think it's (mostly) all there in their documentation, but scattered across many pages

[jmbyrne]

Some Pluto/Quarto thoughts so far:

Pluto pros

• Reactivity
• Simplicity of UI, with output
• Markdown/code blocks not distinguished, allowing them to interact
• Written specifically to be used by Julia, so it works more smoothly
• HTML and PDF outputs
• Instant outputs make it good for iterating code

Pluto cons:

• Need user to download Julia, Pluto, run it, then find the file manually to view
• Load times can get astronomical (e.g. downloading packages, running long algorithms) as no outputs saved

Quarto pros:

• Closer to "normal" Julia code
• Compiles to Jupyter, allowing code to be run without lengthy load times
• Many output options (may need to explore these more), very clean HTML and Jupyter outputs
• User can view interactively with less downloading (especially as Jupyter is so ubiquitous)

Quarto cons:

• A little slower to write in (at least for me)
• Lots to download to be able to edit/compile: Quarto, VSCode, Julia, VSCode extensions for Quarto + Julia, Python (for Jupyter), IJulia, Revise (?)
• Some issues with displaying (KaTeX error, e.g. with @doc)
• Markdown/code integration not possible (Apparently this can be done with the Markdown package)
• Manual compilation
• Can't tab-complete Unicode symbols with backslash codes
• Jupyter can't hide code blocks

[jmbyrne]

This makes it look like Pluto is a lot better than Quarto, but Pluto's issues are so problematic and unavoidable that it makes it unusable in many circumstances.

[jmbyrne]

@sje30

The Markdown rendering issue I was talking about yesterday seems to be caused by the jldoctest environment with filters. I've uploaded a (reasonably) minimal example.