Learning Julia

But why metaprogramming?

To understand why metaprogramming is used, have a look at this scenario. You have a function similar to the one given here, which takes a number and prints it the given number of times:

julia> function foo(n::Int64)
           for i=1:n
               println("foo")
           end
       end
foo (generic function with 1 method)
julia> foo(2)
foo
foo

Simple? Yes. But now suppose, in some different module in your code, you are doing the same kind of operation, but with some other name:

julia> function bar(n::Int64)
           for i=1:n
               println("bar")
           end
       end
bar (generic function with 1 method)

julia> bar(2)
bar
bar

julia> function baz(n::Int64)
           for i=1:n
               println("baz")
           end
       end
baz (generic function with 1 method)

julia> baz(2)
baz
baz

A lot of code repetition, right? You ...