4 ms·

Contemptuous scorn seems to be the officially-sanctioned strategy for responding to reasoned critique or even questions about "the go way" within the community.

by jonahx 8y ago

Contemptuous scorn seems to be the officially-sanctioned strategy for responding to reasoned critique or even questions about "the go way" within the community. My favorite example here is this arrogant dismissal of the idea that a one line expression, rather than a 5 line mutating statement, might be preferred for conditionally setting a value: if expr { n = trueVal } else { n = falseVal } > The if-else form, although longer, is unquestionably clearer. A language needs only one conditional control flow construct. [0] ... n = expr ? trueVal : falseVal "Unquestionably" [0] https://golang.org/doc/faq#Does_Go_have_a_ternary_form https://golang.org/doc/faq#Does_Go_have_a_ternary_form

lsllc 8y ago
> A language needs only one conditional control flow construct. If by "one" you mean `if` _and_ `switch` then yes!
- tandr 8y ago
  and `select`
munificent 8y ago
What I find particularly off-putting is that this attitude of superiority is sometimes married with objective incorrectness. If you're going to claim something is black and white, it should actually be black and white. &&, ||, switch, select, for, and while all do conditional execution in Go. So the rule is not "A language needs only one conditional control flow construct." The rule is really, "We didn't think a conditional operator was worth it." That's a fine rule, but it's better to be honest about it than to pretend the language was designed around some pure principle that doesn't actually exist.
- skybrian 8y ago
  Yeah, I agree about it being off-putting. There's very little science in programming language ergonomics, so it all comes down to taste, right? However, I wonder how much of this is a difference in substance and how much is about writing style? There is an older, authoritive style that has an implicit "in our opinion, of course" and sounds pretty grating these days. I remember being taught in school to remove "I think" and qualifiers expressing uncertainty, under the theory that in an opinion piece, that's understood. Especially these days when hyperbole is common, I prefer writers that have a humble writing style, but also try not to get hung up on stylistic differences.
kardianos 8y ago
The authors of Go have stated they themselves sometimes miss the ternary form, but have seen it abused too much (deeply nested ternary). This isn't an insult to programmers, it is an option that clarity of code is more important then continence. Thus all if and for statements also require {} brackets.
- jonahx 8y ago
  This would be a reasonable position: "While the ternary is often clearer, we chose to sacrifice expressiveness and brevity for the sake of preventing abuses, which we found were all too common." But that is not the claim being made in the FAQ. > Thus all if and for statements also require {} brackets. Indeed this rule seems to spring from the same philosophy. It is most certainly not a preference for clarity, though. It is a preference for consistency. The philosophy is: "We're giving up expressiveness and brevity because in our experience most people can't be trusted to not shoot themselves in the foot." This choice would be much more palatable if they were honest about it. But instead, they take the road of insisting that the verbose consistency is actually clearer, which it isn't, at least in many people's opinions.
  - Merovius 8y ago
    > It is most certainly not a preference for clarity, though. It is a preference for consistency. FTR, with "most certainly" you're committing the same fault your accusing the Go team here. You might not think it matters for clarity. I, at least, disagree. > in our experience most people can't be trusted to not shoot themselves in the foot. I don't understand the difference between this suggested phrasing and talking about clarity. I'd argue you tend to shoot yourself in the foot if and only if you aren't clear about what you're doing. Clarity and lack of footguns seem directly correlated.
    - jonahx 8y ago
      > FTR, with "most certainly" you're committing the same fault your accusing the Go team here. Fair enough. It's too late to edit. > I don't understand the difference between this suggested phrasing and talking about clarity. I'd argue you tend to shoot yourself in the foot if and only if you aren't clear about what you're doing. This is partially true but it's not that simple imo. In my OP, the ternary version is clearer. But if you allow it, then you also open the door to nested ternaries, and foot shooting. Allowing single line if statements (as, eg, ruby does) also allows for clearer code, at the expense of consistency.
Felz 8y ago
Why not have if/else be an expression in the first place, like Kotlin? n = if(expr) trueVal else falseVal No need to learn a separate ternary operator.
- yashap 8y ago
  Quite a few languages do if expressions, and IMO they’re great. Simple syntax, readable and powerful. It’s crazy to me that any new language wouldn’t have them.
  - candiodari 8y ago
    The argument specified in the docs is "a language needs only one conditional flow construct" (in a language, of course, that has half a dozen conditional flow constructs ...) The more palatable argument that people who try to cover for ... seems to be that when people nest if expressions, it becomes a mess. I'm glad these people exist. The real reason is found here: http://dtrace.org/blogs/wesolows/2014/12/29/golang-is-trash/ http://dtrace.org/blogs/wesolows/2014/12/29/golang-is-trash/ (or if you prefer, in the compiler's source itself. It doesn't take a compiler expert to realize it's not very clean code. Even violates the go style, and the C one before that was just horrendous) The TLDR is that Go's compiler is a "fisher-price my first compiler" and really shows that the authors simply barely knew how to get a compiler working in the first place. That they were not ready to go into a rational discussion on programming language and type theory ... is not something anyone should be surprised about. That they avoid the arguments by dismissing the people making them in such a condescending way is ... well, there's not really anything good to say about that.
    - 4ad 8y ago
      Ken Thompson has been writing compilers for over 50 years now. If you believe that Ken "barely knew how to get a compiler working in the first place", we have nothing to talk about, as you obviously made up your mind already.
      - candiodari 8y ago
zackmorris 8y ago
Oh man don't tell me these things. I haven't used Go yet in production, but the more I learn about the ways it diverges from functional programming, the more I doubt I'll ever use it. I was thinking I could write my own if(condition, true_case, false_case) method similar to the way it's done in spreadsheets, but Go also doesn't have macros or inline if/else expressions, so there is simply no way to emulate ternary logic in a performant manner :-(
- jonahx 8y ago
  Oh let's be very clear: Go is actively, explicitly anti-FP, anti-expressiveness, anti-brevity. Those are simply not its values. And any attempts to write Go in FP style will be considered unidiomatic Go. And the missing ternary will be the least of your problems. Do you enjoy `map` and `filter`? Sorry, the "go way" is to use a for loop every time. Reimplementing map on every type where you need it is considered best practice in Go. Have a problem with that? Expect a snarky comment about your priorities. This can all be pretty frustrating when you've experienced the joys of more expressive languages. Go has good concurrency primitives and is fast. That's what it's good at. Those are the reasons to use it. Temper your expectations accordingly.
  - Merovius 8y ago
    > Have a problem with that? Expect a snarky comment about your priorities. Whereas your comment is completely devoid of snark.
    - candiodari 8y ago
      That comment, however, is a comment on hacker news. Not the official docs of a programming language. In one of those, a bit of snark is really quite normal and of no real impact.

by jonahx 8y ago

lsllc 8y ago

> A language needs only one conditional control flow construct. If by "one" you mean `if` _and_ `switch` then yes!

tandr 8y ago
and `select`

munificent 8y ago

What I find particularly off-putting is that this attitude of superiority is sometimes married with objective incorrectness. If you're going to claim something is black and white, it should actually be black and white. &&, ||, switch, select, for, and while all do conditional execution in Go. So the rule is not "A language needs only one conditional control flow construct." The rule is really, "We didn't think a conditional operator was worth it." That's a fine rule, but it's better to be honest about it than to pretend the language was designed around some pure principle that doesn't actually exist.

skybrian 8y ago
Yeah, I agree about it being off-putting. There's very little science in programming language ergonomics, so it all comes down to taste, right? However, I wonder how much of this is a difference in substance and how much is about writing style? There is an older, authoritive style that has an implicit "in our opinion, of course" and sounds pretty grating these days. I remember being taught in school to remove "I think" and qualifiers expressing uncertainty, under the theory that in an opinion piece, that's understood. Especially these days when hyperbole is common, I prefer writers that have a humble writing style, but also try not to get hung up on stylistic differences.

kardianos 8y ago

The authors of Go have stated they themselves sometimes miss the ternary form, but have seen it abused too much (deeply nested ternary). This isn't an insult to programmers, it is an option that clarity of code is more important then continence. Thus all if and for statements also require {} brackets.

jonahx 8y ago
This would be a reasonable position: "While the ternary is often clearer, we chose to sacrifice expressiveness and brevity for the sake of preventing abuses, which we found were all too common." But that is not the claim being made in the FAQ. > Thus all if and for statements also require {} brackets. Indeed this rule seems to spring from the same philosophy. It is most certainly not a preference for clarity, though. It is a preference for consistency. The philosophy is: "We're giving up expressiveness and brevity because in our experience most people can't be trusted to not shoot themselves in the foot." This choice would be much more palatable if they were honest about it. But instead, they take the road of insisting that the verbose consistency is actually clearer, which it isn't, at least in many people's opinions.
- Merovius 8y ago
  > It is most certainly not a preference for clarity, though. It is a preference for consistency. FTR, with "most certainly" you're committing the same fault your accusing the Go team here. You might not think it matters for clarity. I, at least, disagree. > in our experience most people can't be trusted to not shoot themselves in the foot. I don't understand the difference between this suggested phrasing and talking about clarity. I'd argue you tend to shoot yourself in the foot if and only if you aren't clear about what you're doing. Clarity and lack of footguns seem directly correlated.
  - jonahx 8y ago
    > FTR, with "most certainly" you're committing the same fault your accusing the Go team here. Fair enough. It's too late to edit. > I don't understand the difference between this suggested phrasing and talking about clarity. I'd argue you tend to shoot yourself in the foot if and only if you aren't clear about what you're doing. This is partially true but it's not that simple imo. In my OP, the ternary version is clearer. But if you allow it, then you also open the door to nested ternaries, and foot shooting. Allowing single line if statements (as, eg, ruby does) also allows for clearer code, at the expense of consistency.

Felz 8y ago

Why not have if/else be an expression in the first place, like Kotlin? n = if(expr) trueVal else falseVal No need to learn a separate ternary operator.

yashap 8y ago
Quite a few languages do if expressions, and IMO they’re great. Simple syntax, readable and powerful. It’s crazy to me that any new language wouldn’t have them.
- candiodari 8y ago
  The argument specified in the docs is "a language needs only one conditional flow construct" (in a language, of course, that has half a dozen conditional flow constructs ...) The more palatable argument that people who try to cover for ... seems to be that when people nest if expressions, it becomes a mess. I'm glad these people exist. The real reason is found here: http://dtrace.org/blogs/wesolows/2014/12/29/golang-is-trash/ http://dtrace.org/blogs/wesolows/2014/12/29/golang-is-trash/ (or if you prefer, in the compiler's source itself. It doesn't take a compiler expert to realize it's not very clean code. Even violates the go style, and the C one before that was just horrendous) The TLDR is that Go's compiler is a "fisher-price my first compiler" and really shows that the authors simply barely knew how to get a compiler working in the first place. That they were not ready to go into a rational discussion on programming language and type theory ... is not something anyone should be surprised about. That they avoid the arguments by dismissing the people making them in such a condescending way is ... well, there's not really anything good to say about that.
  - 4ad 8y ago
    Ken Thompson has been writing compilers for over 50 years now. If you believe that Ken "barely knew how to get a compiler working in the first place", we have nothing to talk about, as you obviously made up your mind already.
    - candiodari 8y ago

zackmorris 8y ago

Oh man don't tell me these things. I haven't used Go yet in production, but the more I learn about the ways it diverges from functional programming, the more I doubt I'll ever use it. I was thinking I could write my own if(condition, true_case, false_case) method similar to the way it's done in spreadsheets, but Go also doesn't have macros or inline if/else expressions, so there is simply no way to emulate ternary logic in a performant manner :-(

jonahx 8y ago
Oh let's be very clear: Go is actively, explicitly anti-FP, anti-expressiveness, anti-brevity. Those are simply not its values. And any attempts to write Go in FP style will be considered unidiomatic Go. And the missing ternary will be the least of your problems. Do you enjoy `map` and `filter`? Sorry, the "go way" is to use a for loop every time. Reimplementing map on every type where you need it is considered best practice in Go. Have a problem with that? Expect a snarky comment about your priorities. This can all be pretty frustrating when you've experienced the joys of more expressive languages. Go has good concurrency primitives and is fast. That's what it's good at. Those are the reasons to use it. Temper your expectations accordingly.
- Merovius 8y ago
  > Have a problem with that? Expect a snarky comment about your priorities. Whereas your comment is completely devoid of snark.
  - candiodari 8y ago
    That comment, however, is a comment on hacker news. Not the official docs of a programming language. In one of those, a bit of snark is really quite normal and of no real impact.