I agree with the kernel of your point here, but also with the author of the article when he says "But systemic problems like this can rarely be solved from the bottom up, and my sense is that the project leadership does not agree that there is a serious correctness problem. They accept the existence of individual isolated issues, but not the pattern that those issues imply."
My impression is that the Julia core devs are more focused on functionality and being able to construct new, more powerful, faster capabilities than on reflecting on how the foundations could or should be made more rigorous. For this, I think the devs have to philosophically agree that soundness in the large should be a first-tier guiding principle, and that the language should have mechanisms whereby correctness-by-construction can be encouraged, if not enforced. Presently, notions of soundness seems to only be considered in the small, such as the behavior of specific floating point ops. Basically, I don't think the core devs are as concerned with soundness, rigor, and consistency as they are with being able to build more impressive capabilities.
I don't want this to sound like I'm ungrateful for the awesomeness that Julia and its ecosystem does bring to the table. For numerical computing, I don't see any alternatives whose tradeoffs are more favorable. But it is disappointing that it doesn't seem to learn the lessons about rigorous language design and the language-level implications for engineering vs. craftsmanship appropriate for a twenty-first century language.
My impression is that the Julia core devs are more focused on functionality and being able to construct new, more powerful, faster capabilities than on reflecting on how the foundations could or should be made more rigorous. For this, I think the devs have to philosophically agree that soundness in the large should be a first-tier guiding principle, and that the language should have mechanisms whereby correctness-by-construction can be encouraged, if not enforced. Presently, notions of soundness seems to only be considered in the small, such as the behavior of specific floating point ops. Basically, I don't think the core devs are as concerned with soundness, rigor, and consistency as they are with being able to build more impressive capabilities.
I don't want this to sound like I'm ungrateful for the awesomeness that Julia and its ecosystem does bring to the table. For numerical computing, I don't see any alternatives whose tradeoffs are more favorable. But it is disappointing that it doesn't seem to learn the lessons about rigorous language design and the language-level implications for engineering vs. craftsmanship appropriate for a twenty-first century language.