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Despite Android's market share, some developers still write for iOS first and port to Android later (if at all). By moving to Swift, Google could reduce this fr

by freyr 10y ago

Despite Android's market share, some developers still write for iOS first and port to Android later (if at all). By moving to Swift, Google could reduce this friction and help prevent Android from being a second-class citizen among developers. Also, Go is a great language for writing networked systems software in. But it's not necessarily great for GUI-based application development. And there really hasn't been much effort to change that, from the Go team or externally.

danielrhodes 10y ago
Go was originally written to replace the things C++ is usually used for. There are many other languages which work well for higher level uses. I think the motivation behind creating Go was there weren't many new languages made to make writing systems level software easier.
- freyr 10y ago
  > Go was originally written to replace the things C++ is usually used for. Go was originally written to replace the things C++ is usually used for within Google. C++ is used for many other things (embedded programming, games and graphics engines, etc.) that it doesn't seem like the Go authors were targeting. In fact, Pike said "we were pleased and a little surprised to find [Go] suitable for general-purpose programming" [1]. This suggests they weren't intending to create an across-the-board replacement of C++, since C++ is certainly a general-purpose programming language. Perhaps to a fault. > I think the motivation behind creating Go was there weren't many new languages made to make writing systems level software easier. The authors ran into issues describing it as a "systems language," since it's not really a systems language in the conventional sense (i.e., low-level language with fine-grained control over hardware and memory) [1]. Because C++ is used for conventional systems programming, and the Go team described Go as a C++ replacement, this probably ended up doing Go's reputation more harm than good. Pike and the Go team have essentially redefined "systems language" for their purpose, as a language targeting servers and interconnected systems. And it excels there. [1] http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1623555 http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1623555 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_programming
dogma1138 10y ago
Many developers do that because that's where the money is. While Android has a larger market share Apple brings more money through app sales than Android. The Android ecosystem is also utterly segmented which means you have to support multiple versions of the API and a very wide range of hardware profiles which turns developing a consistent UX into a nightmare. On top of that you have to deal with emerging markets that sell android devices that don't even come with a play store and Google's APIs.

by freyr 10y ago

danielrhodes 10y ago

Go was originally written to replace the things C++ is usually used for. There are many other languages which work well for higher level uses. I think the motivation behind creating Go was there weren't many new languages made to make writing systems level software easier.

freyr 10y ago
> Go was originally written to replace the things C++ is usually used for. Go was originally written to replace the things C++ is usually used for within Google. C++ is used for many other things (embedded programming, games and graphics engines, etc.) that it doesn't seem like the Go authors were targeting. In fact, Pike said "we were pleased and a little surprised to find [Go] suitable for general-purpose programming" [1]. This suggests they weren't intending to create an across-the-board replacement of C++, since C++ is certainly a general-purpose programming language. Perhaps to a fault. > I think the motivation behind creating Go was there weren't many new languages made to make writing systems level software easier. The authors ran into issues describing it as a "systems language," since it's not really a systems language in the conventional sense (i.e., low-level language with fine-grained control over hardware and memory) [1]. Because C++ is used for conventional systems programming, and the Go team described Go as a C++ replacement, this probably ended up doing Go's reputation more harm than good. Pike and the Go team have essentially redefined "systems language" for their purpose, as a language targeting servers and interconnected systems. And it excels there. [1] http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1623555 http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1623555 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_programming

dogma1138 10y ago

Many developers do that because that's where the money is. While Android has a larger market share Apple brings more money through app sales than Android. The Android ecosystem is also utterly segmented which means you have to support multiple versions of the API and a very wide range of hardware profiles which turns developing a consistent UX into a nightmare. On top of that you have to deal with emerging markets that sell android devices that don't even come with a play store and Google's APIs.