Julia doesn't function well if the miniconda3/envs/esmvaltool install dir is not in $HOME

[valeriupredoi]

I have been trying to figure this out the whole day today - finally concluded this: if one installs esmvaltool with the miniconda3/envs/esmvaltool dir and the esmvaltool source dir not in $HOME, esmvaltool install Julia will automatically install the dep packages in $HOME/.julia, and from there on all PyCall-related hell breaks loose. One can install the Julia deps anywhere else by setting the JULIA_DEPOT_PATH variable to that location (but I am told this is obsolete, and now one should work with separate Pkg's), but I tested that too, and it didn't work for me either. I am starting to have it up to here with Julia - it's a dumb overly complicated package that doesn't add anything major in terms of functionality - not anything that we can't find in Python, that is; and it generates and manages its own separate environment, it's sensitive to paths etc - I am a big advocate of not supporting it anymore - what say you @zklaus @bouweandela @jvegasbsc 🍺

[zklaus]

Hm. I thought Julia always installs everything in $HOME/.julia (custom mucking about with JULIA_DEPOT_PATH and friends notwithstanding). I also think Julia does quite a horrible job of playing with systems and helping packagers. But I also really like the Rainfarm. 🤷

Perhaps we can keep it lingering for a bit while monitoring https://github.com/conda-forge/julia-feedstock, particularly conda-forge/julia-feedstock#87?

[valeriupredoi]

I thought Julia always installs everything in $HOME/.julia

No, if you set that DEPOT path it'll install wherever that path points to but then it gets very confused and it's saying none of the pkgs installed there are actually installed; maybe I have to set another path variable or another thing I dunno, but that's not what we'd expect a user with little experience of Julia (giggity 😁 )

Perhaps we can keep it lingering for a bit while monitoring https://github.com/conda-forge/julia-feedstock, particularly conda-forge/julia-feedstock#87?

OK, let's do that. I can't make the central install on JASMIIN work with Julia (all else: python, R, NCL etc works fine though) coz of this paths issue, but nay bother, I don't think the previous setup worked either and got 0 complaints from JASMIN users about it 😁

Gonna close the issue, don't see a point keeping it, it was more like an ❗ for us