3 ms·

For another view: http://dtrace.org/blogs/wesolows/2014/12/29/golang-is-trash/ http://dtrace.org/blogs/wesolows/2014/12/29/golang-is-trash/ I'm partly with the

by to3m 9y ago

For another view: http://dtrace.org/blogs/wesolows/2014/12/29/golang-is-trash/ http://dtrace.org/blogs/wesolows/2014/12/29/golang-is-trash/ I'm partly with the dtrace guy, but it is nice to see somebody not propagating that gcc inline asm shite... so I'm prepared to forgive it a certain amount.

iainmerrick 9y ago
I'm not a Go fan, but I'm not ready to dismiss it as "trash" -- I mean, it works! And plenty of people like it. But I can't quite figure out whether this Go assembly stuff is a real feature that makes sense and is well-designed, or if it's just a quirk of the implementation, stemming from its background in Plan 9. The assembly section in the Go docs literally says "go read the Plan 9 docs first". That's kind of weird.
- iainmerrick 9y ago
  OK, another commenter linked to crc32 in the Go standard library: https://github.com/golang/go/tree/master/src/hash/crc32 https://github.com/golang/go/tree/master/src/hash/crc32 That has different .s files for different architectures, and a .go file with the platform-independent version, so the assembly clearly isn't platform-independent. It seems a strange decision to disguise e.g. arm64 assembly behind an x86-like syntax, so I'm going to go with "quirk of the implementation."
- weberc2 9y ago
  As I understand it, Go's assembly is an artifact of its heritage--it was initially built by developers who were more familiar with the Plan 9 toolchain than they were with other toolchains.
  - baby 9y ago
    I believe the people behind Go are the people behind Plan 9?
arcticbull 9y ago
This has been my consistent frustration with the development philosophy. I like to describe it as deciding to build a sweet new car to get from SF to LA and starting by paving the roads. Using 30 year old asphalt. Focus on what you bring to the table, and use LLVM or, god forgive me even GCC ;) as your foundation. Great writeup, thanks for sharing.

by to3m 9y ago

iainmerrick 9y ago

I'm not a Go fan, but I'm not ready to dismiss it as "trash" -- I mean, it works! And plenty of people like it. But I can't quite figure out whether this Go assembly stuff is a real feature that makes sense and is well-designed, or if it's just a quirk of the implementation, stemming from its background in Plan 9. The assembly section in the Go docs literally says "go read the Plan 9 docs first". That's kind of weird.

iainmerrick 9y ago
OK, another commenter linked to crc32 in the Go standard library: https://github.com/golang/go/tree/master/src/hash/crc32 https://github.com/golang/go/tree/master/src/hash/crc32 That has different .s files for different architectures, and a .go file with the platform-independent version, so the assembly clearly isn't platform-independent. It seems a strange decision to disguise e.g. arm64 assembly behind an x86-like syntax, so I'm going to go with "quirk of the implementation."
weberc2 9y ago
As I understand it, Go's assembly is an artifact of its heritage--it was initially built by developers who were more familiar with the Plan 9 toolchain than they were with other toolchains.
- baby 9y ago
  I believe the people behind Go are the people behind Plan 9?

arcticbull 9y ago

This has been my consistent frustration with the development philosophy. I like to describe it as deciding to build a sweet new car to get from SF to LA and starting by paving the roads. Using 30 year old asphalt. Focus on what you bring to the table, and use LLVM or, god forgive me even GCC ;) as your foundation. Great writeup, thanks for sharing.