What is "julia"
Julia is a high-level, dynamic, open-source programming language designed to meet high-performance requirements in scientific computing and, at the same time, has a syntax that is familiar to users of other technical computing languages, like Ruby, Python, R or MATLAB.
It features a sophisticated JIT compiler, concurrent, parallel, distributed execution, and an extensive set of mathematical functions in its basic library.
This library, largely developed with its own Julia language, also aggregates mature, high-quality, performance C and FORTRAN libraries for use in linear algebra, efficient random number generation, FFT and string processing.
The core (core) language is implemented in C and C++, and the parser, in Scheme language ("femtolisp").
To generate binary code optimized in 32-bit or 64-bit, Julia uses the framework LLVM as JIT compiler (depending on platform or user-configured options).
The API allows direct execution of functions in exeternal libraries (developed, for example, in C or FORTRAN), without the need to use Wrappers.
Programs in Julia perform similar to programs developed in C or FORTRAN, but programming is as simple as MATLAB, R or Python, due to similarity in syntax.
Although it’s still in "childhood" (February 2012), its evolution has occurred quickly.
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Text adapted from the following sources:
Stackoverflow - Tag Info - julia