📝Julia is successful because numerical computing is on a rise (data science, machine learning, etc)
Julia has become popular because it hit the right niche—numerical computing—that is on a rise with all data science, machine learning, etc.
Quote
With the benefit of hindsight, the team has a better understanding of why the language managed to do so well. “It hit the right niche,” Karpinski said. “We really hit the timing for numerical programming becoming a huge deal.”
When the group started their work on Julia, GUI-based programming still dominated textbooks and classrooms across the world. Now, machine learning, AI, and big data are front and center, and they require programming languages with enough heft to be able to handle them nimbly. […]. “That’s all in our wheelhouse,” Karpinski said. “Ten years earlier, people wouldn’t have cared as much.”
—Julia: The Goldilocks language – Increment: Programming Languages
See also
Languages become popular when they bring innovative runtime—a high-level language for numerical computation that is 200× faster then competition is arguably an innovative runtime.