but is this "compilation model" inherent to the language? It seems to be an implementation choice. It is conceivable an independent interpeter for the same Julia language but with fast startup.
Julia already comes with an interpreter, try starting your session with `julia --compile=min`.
One part of the ongoing effort to reduce latencies is to allow package authors to specify optimization levels on a per-module basis. This is great for plotting packages for example, since they usually don't benefit much from overly aggressive optimizations, so spending less time optimizing codes generally leads to a snappier experience. It is now even possible to opt into a module-specific fully interpreted mode, which can make a lot of sense for typical scripting tasks.
