[RogerL]

Okay, here is an idea.

The Julia people are complaining that their language is great but it is not being picked up because their standard libraries are missing a ton of functionality.

Start knocking out some standard library functionality.

Sure, you may not be interested in Julia. But there are plenty of other projects out there that are understaffed. IPython Notebook needs developers. Octave needs somebody to write a good front end. It goes on and on.

The advantage is that you don't have to be super creative (compare Julia's libraries to Python, and start implementing something that isn't yet in Julia), nor predict the future (meaning, you can make a brand new X, but if the world goes to Y, you will never get picked up). What you write will be used by (at least) thousands, and you will have to write production quality code to get your pull requests accepted. I'd be impressed with anyone that did that, even if I had no interest/need in the project that they contributed to.

[danjayh]

I would like to proffer a different strategy: Pick something that you are passionate about, good at, and comfortable with. Then push your personal boundaries and learn something new while making some app/widget/whatever, even if it's been solved/done before. Why did you do it? You wanted to stay up to date, learn something, and it was fun (and all of this will be true).

Whatever you made will probably be something pretty sweet because you chose something close to your heart, not something that was simply 'unsolved' or 'needed doing'.

Employers will love that you chose to challenge yourself to build new skills as a hobby, and because you chose something that you are passionate about, you'll probably also have a good amount of enthusiasm while you talk about it, which is equally important.

[cgearhart]

That sounds like a great idea. Do you have any specific links or resources regarding limitations of the Julia standard library?