4 ms·

That's just not justifiable. Agree or not with the design decisions behind Go, its creators are at the far opposite end of "no idea about languages."

by sidlls 10y ago

twic 10y ago
Then how did they come up with Go? Alternatively, if they are knowledgeable about language design, what other good language designs have they come up with? I am perpetually baffled by this particular defence of Go. Go has a number of real strengths, but it also has several howling, inexcusable, flaws. How can you possibly say that that this is the work of people who are expert in language design?
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  Look up Pike's resume. Look up Thompson's. Look at your own. Those guys have far more experience at designing (and even using) languages than you do. You may not like the choices they made. Fine. But stop assuming that it was from ignorance or incompetence. It wasn't.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  Why is it that some languages which are lauded for their programming language design aren't used? Alternatively, if "language design" as you think of it was all that truly mattered, why isn't the programming world as you wish it would be? (Such things were asked in the Smalltalk community for years.)
  - ajmurmann 10y ago
    I think Smalltalk is a bad example for this. I've been told by Smalltalk programmers that everything in that eco system used to be insanely expensive. A better example is probably Haskell or Lisp. As you are probably trying to imply the learning curve seriously matters. Go is a true winner here.
    - stcredzero 10y ago
      I've been told by Smalltalk programmers that everything in that eco system used to be insanely expensive. There was a period of time when this was true, which helped to kill Smalltalk mindshare. Then, there was a period of time when there were many economically priced Smalltalk environments, and a even a good FOSS one. Now, we have a couple of good FOSS environments.
    - kazinator 10y ago
      Right; so expensive that an entire OOP system with a GUI fit into an image that ran in half a meg of RAM. Firefox can't render a damned favicon with the resources that Smalltalk used. Everything you're doing now either was or would have been insanely expensive in 1983. Emacs used to be derided as being an acronym for "eight megabytes and constantly swapping". Sure, a big deal on a Sun3 with 4 megs of RAM.
      - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
        Half a meg of RAM is cheap. A $5000 software license isn't. It wasn't the price of RAM that made Smalltalk expensive.
- skybrian 10y ago
  Consider that rather than "howling, inexcusable, flaws", people may have different ideas about what's really important in a programming language.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - Ericson2314 10y ago
    There are opinions, and there are qualifications. We are dubious of the Go team's opinions because of their lack of qualifications.
- occamrazor 10y ago
  Rob Pike and Ken Thompson are the authors of, among many other things: the original Unix, Plan 9, B (the predecessor of C), Inferno (a successor of Plan 9), UTF-8. They definitely are experts in language design.
  - twic 10y ago
    > the original Unix Not a language. > Plan 9 Not a language. > B (the predecessor of C) A version of BCPL, stripped down to fit on the hardware they had. Considerably less sophisticated than Algol, which had been designed years before. > Inferno (a successor of Plan 9) Not a language. > UTF-8 Not a language. > They definitely are experts in language design. What?
    - Ericson2314 10y ago
      Amen
- sidlls 10y ago
  Well, in fairness at least one of them contributed significantly to the work that generated the design of the language that has powered almost all of computing one way or another for decades (in spite of its many and varied howling and inexcusable flaws, as you'd call them). I'd say that in-practice that beats any aesthetic view of 'design' you have in mind.
- zzzcpan 10y ago
  There are no experts in language design in this field. While you might feel strongly that some things are very wrong, it doesn't mean that "the right way" you have in mind was designed by professionals. Academically-influenced languages are pretty bad at this too. It's hard to admit, but all of the languages we have are of amateurish quality.
  - devuo 10y ago
    Amateurish in relation to what?
    - jimsmart 10y ago
      Programmer's idealistic thinking, perhaps?
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    While you might feel strongly that some things are very wrong, it doesn't mean that "the right way" you have in mind was designed by professionals. Does the "wrong" way always tragically win in the marketplace of ideas? Maybe our (sub)culture has a screwed up idea of what "right" is?

That's just not justifiable. Agree or not with the design decisions behind Go, its creators are at the far opposite end of "no idea about languages."

by sidlls 10y ago

That's just not justifiable. Agree or not with the design decisions behind Go, its creators are at the far opposite end of "no idea about languages."

twic 10y ago

Then how did they come up with Go? Alternatively, if they are knowledgeable about language design, what other good language designs have they come up with? I am perpetually baffled by this particular defence of Go. Go has a number of real strengths, but it also has several howling, inexcusable, flaws. How can you possibly say that that this is the work of people who are expert in language design?

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
Look up Pike's resume. Look up Thompson's. Look at your own. Those guys have far more experience at designing (and even using) languages than you do. You may not like the choices they made. Fine. But stop assuming that it was from ignorance or incompetence. It wasn't.
stcredzero 10y ago
Why is it that some languages which are lauded for their programming language design aren't used? Alternatively, if "language design" as you think of it was all that truly mattered, why isn't the programming world as you wish it would be? (Such things were asked in the Smalltalk community for years.)
- ajmurmann 10y ago
  I think Smalltalk is a bad example for this. I've been told by Smalltalk programmers that everything in that eco system used to be insanely expensive. A better example is probably Haskell or Lisp. As you are probably trying to imply the learning curve seriously matters. Go is a true winner here.
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    I've been told by Smalltalk programmers that everything in that eco system used to be insanely expensive. There was a period of time when this was true, which helped to kill Smalltalk mindshare. Then, there was a period of time when there were many economically priced Smalltalk environments, and a even a good FOSS one. Now, we have a couple of good FOSS environments.
  - kazinator 10y ago
    Right; so expensive that an entire OOP system with a GUI fit into an image that ran in half a meg of RAM. Firefox can't render a damned favicon with the resources that Smalltalk used. Everything you're doing now either was or would have been insanely expensive in 1983. Emacs used to be derided as being an acronym for "eight megabytes and constantly swapping". Sure, a big deal on a Sun3 with 4 megs of RAM.
    - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
      Half a meg of RAM is cheap. A $5000 software license isn't. It wasn't the price of RAM that made Smalltalk expensive.
skybrian 10y ago
Consider that rather than "howling, inexcusable, flaws", people may have different ideas about what's really important in a programming language.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Ericson2314 10y ago
  There are opinions, and there are qualifications. We are dubious of the Go team's opinions because of their lack of qualifications.
occamrazor 10y ago
Rob Pike and Ken Thompson are the authors of, among many other things: the original Unix, Plan 9, B (the predecessor of C), Inferno (a successor of Plan 9), UTF-8. They definitely are experts in language design.
- twic 10y ago
  > the original Unix Not a language. > Plan 9 Not a language. > B (the predecessor of C) A version of BCPL, stripped down to fit on the hardware they had. Considerably less sophisticated than Algol, which had been designed years before. > Inferno (a successor of Plan 9) Not a language. > UTF-8 Not a language. > They definitely are experts in language design. What?
  - Ericson2314 10y ago
    Amen
sidlls 10y ago
Well, in fairness at least one of them contributed significantly to the work that generated the design of the language that has powered almost all of computing one way or another for decades (in spite of its many and varied howling and inexcusable flaws, as you'd call them). I'd say that in-practice that beats any aesthetic view of 'design' you have in mind.
zzzcpan 10y ago
There are no experts in language design in this field. While you might feel strongly that some things are very wrong, it doesn't mean that "the right way" you have in mind was designed by professionals. Academically-influenced languages are pretty bad at this too. It's hard to admit, but all of the languages we have are of amateurish quality.
- devuo 10y ago
  Amateurish in relation to what?
  - jimsmart 10y ago
    Programmer's idealistic thinking, perhaps?
- stcredzero 10y ago
  While you might feel strongly that some things are very wrong, it doesn't mean that "the right way" you have in mind was designed by professionals. Does the "wrong" way always tragically win in the marketplace of ideas? Maybe our (sub)culture has a screwed up idea of what "right" is?