It’s just-ahead-of-time compiled and no «interpreted mode» so it’s always slow to start, if I understand correctly. Really annoying, especially the first time you use it.
If you need to run small scripts and can't switch to a persistent-REPL-based workflow, you might consider starting Julia with the `--compile=min` option. If you know which packages you're going to need, you can also reduce startup times dramatically by building a sysimg with PackageCompiler.jl
There is also technically an interpreter if you want to go that way [1], so in principle it might be possible to do the same trick javascript does, but someone would have to implement that.
There is also technically an interpreter if you want to go that way [1], so in principle it might be possible to do the same trick javascript does, but someone would have to implement that.
[1] https://github.com/JuliaDebug/JuliaInterpreter.jl