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Calling out Go here is a strange thing to do; Go supports unicode from the ground up. Strings are UTF-8, and any identifier can include unicode characters - you
by enneff 16y ago
Calling out Go here is a strange thing to do; Go supports unicode from the ground up. Strings are UTF-8, and any identifier can include unicode characters - you can name your Pi constant with the greek letter.
Not only that, but we actually debated using the unicode characters for !=, >=, and so on instead of the standard multi-character ASCII equivalents. In the end it was decided that it would be a gratuitous change for little benefit.
So it's a shame that he levelled his criticism at Rob Pike, a guy who clearly knows a lot about unicode (he co-authored UTF-8 with Ken), built the first Operating System with unicode support in its foundations (Plan 9), and has taken great care to support unicode in Go.
- ek 16y agoThis post should be at the top of the thread. When you go to golang.org, one of the first things they highlight, on the homepage, is the fact that Go has native unicode support. The article makes a good point, but what Hanning-Kamp describes as needing to happen has already started to happen, with Go. The entire ethos of this piece is that it is a rant about something that needs to happen, but unfortunately, that thing has already happened.