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Go (despite its faults) definitely raised that minimum bar; a language needs to arrive with a package manager and doc tools, as well as enough standard library

Go (despite its faults) definitely raised that minimum bar; a language needs to arrive with a package manager and doc tools, as well as enough standard library to get non-trivial things going. Rust made the right decision on HTTP - let the ecosystem provide. Of course, the result of that is summarized in the quote by Grace Hopper: “The wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.”

marcosdumay 10y ago
There's always the Python way: Let the ecosystem provide, then, once there's a few clean winners, pick one as the official (while keeping the others there, obviously).
- paulddraper 10y ago
  C++/Boost does that
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    Yes (what is quite inline with the C tradition). What is interesting is that I can't think of a lot languages that do it. It should be the default, as it's easy, safe, and gets good results. Somehow, it isn't. And then there's the Haskell's way of: let the community informally choose the one best option, and when somebody uses any of the other ones, just get somebody near him telling "nobody goes there anymore, come to this other place". It works very well, but is a bit confusing for newbies.
pjmlp 10y ago
Go's minimum bar is well below Active Oberon, Delphi, Eiffel, Java and .NET ones.
- jerf 10y ago
  Remember I'm not discussing what they have now, though; the question is what they came out of the gate with in their 1.0. I'm fairly confident Go 1.0 was much more useful than Java 1.0. Java 1.0 certainly didn't ship with a built-in web server and routing stack, or even anything close to that high-level functionality, even if it did ship with more data structures that Go has even now. .Net was a closer call, but, then, .Net came later, the bar had raised. Can't speak to the other ones but I would imagine their first releases were also less useful than Go.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    > Java 1.0 certainly didn't ship with a built-in web server and routing stack Kind of, it supported distributed computing via CORBA and RMI. A built in web server was released as part of Java 6, 2006. > Can't speak to the other ones but I would imagine their first releases were also less useful than Go. The fact is that Go, released in 2009, was a pretty bare bones compared to the state of those programming languages in 2009. Also while Go might had an HTTP package on version 1.0, it surely still doesn't have a GUI framework on 1.8, which those languages had on 1.0. EDIT: Rephrased a bit the answer.
    - jerf 10y ago
      "A built in web server was released as part of Java 6, 2006." Go isn't even that old yet. You're welcome to discuss what you like but I'm talking about what thing came with at first release. "Also while Go might had an HTTP package on version 1.0, it surely still doesn't have a GUI framework on 1.8, which those languages had on 1.0." Point. And even by 1.0 Java's was at least modestly capable by the standards of the time, as I recall. It didn't have everything, certainly couldn't compete with all the custom widgets you could buy for Windows, but usable.

marcosdumay 10y ago

There's always the Python way: Let the ecosystem provide, then, once there's a few clean winners, pick one as the official (while keeping the others there, obviously).

paulddraper 10y ago
C++/Boost does that
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  Yes (what is quite inline with the C tradition). What is interesting is that I can't think of a lot languages that do it. It should be the default, as it's easy, safe, and gets good results. Somehow, it isn't. And then there's the Haskell's way of: let the community informally choose the one best option, and when somebody uses any of the other ones, just get somebody near him telling "nobody goes there anymore, come to this other place". It works very well, but is a bit confusing for newbies.

pjmlp 10y ago

Go's minimum bar is well below Active Oberon, Delphi, Eiffel, Java and .NET ones.

jerf 10y ago
Remember I'm not discussing what they have now, though; the question is what they came out of the gate with in their 1.0. I'm fairly confident Go 1.0 was much more useful than Java 1.0. Java 1.0 certainly didn't ship with a built-in web server and routing stack, or even anything close to that high-level functionality, even if it did ship with more data structures that Go has even now. .Net was a closer call, but, then, .Net came later, the bar had raised. Can't speak to the other ones but I would imagine their first releases were also less useful than Go.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  > Java 1.0 certainly didn't ship with a built-in web server and routing stack Kind of, it supported distributed computing via CORBA and RMI. A built in web server was released as part of Java 6, 2006. > Can't speak to the other ones but I would imagine their first releases were also less useful than Go. The fact is that Go, released in 2009, was a pretty bare bones compared to the state of those programming languages in 2009. Also while Go might had an HTTP package on version 1.0, it surely still doesn't have a GUI framework on 1.8, which those languages had on 1.0. EDIT: Rephrased a bit the answer.
  - jerf 10y ago
    "A built in web server was released as part of Java 6, 2006." Go isn't even that old yet. You're welcome to discuss what you like but I'm talking about what thing came with at first release. "Also while Go might had an HTTP package on version 1.0, it surely still doesn't have a GUI framework on 1.8, which those languages had on 1.0." Point. And even by 1.0 Java's was at least modestly capable by the standards of the time, as I recall. It didn't have everything, certainly couldn't compete with all the custom widgets you could buy for Windows, but usable.