6 ms·

> Honestly, Go is great. Its simplicity is refreshing and its performance unmatched. I would still pick it if we need a small API or something that requires hig

• pjmlp 8y ago
  Not sure about the OP, but for many Go is the only compiled language they ever used, so they get to attribute features to Go that aren't that unique of it.
  • sacado2 8y ago
    > for many Go is the only compiled language they ever used That, or it can be read as "in the family of web-friendly languages". The only other "fast" language widely used for the web is Java.
    • grumpydba 8y ago
      And java is a memory hog quite painful to deploy and tune.
      • sacado2 8y ago
        Yes, launching a new server/executable in java is a PITA dur to the JVM warmup (at least it was a few years ago, don't know whether they improved that point or not).
        • pjmlp 8y ago
          Only for those that don't use a JVM with either AOT compilation or JIT caching.
        • grumpydba 8y ago
          Don't forget that you also have to install and update the JVM. We admins don't like that.
          • pjmlp 8y ago
            Only those that don't know how to bundle the JVM with the application or make use of a commercial AOT compiler to native code.
            • grumpydba 8y ago
              You prove my point, it requires specific knowledge full of gotchas.
              • pjmlp 8y ago
                As team lead I consider having the interest to master the tooling part of the job requirements and respective evaluation, not specific knowledge full of gothas.
      • pjmlp 8y ago
        Memory hog only by those that don't know what they are doing and happilly new everywhere. Yes it is hard to tune, but not so much different than playing with C or C++ compilation switches, across each compiler that is being used in production.
        • grumpydba 8y ago
          > Memory hog only by those that don't know what they are doing and happilly new everywhere. Go uses an order of magnitude less memory for most type of workloads though. Also you don't tune c++ binaries delivered to you. You have to tune the JVM's option to death for big apps. I can't count the number of incidents "solved" by raising the Xmx param.
          • pjmlp 8y ago
            I tune C++ compilers, just like I tune Java compilers, in both cases I can decide to do it during AOT compilation or at a later moment. The big question is how properly those big apps were coded. Go doesn't run Fintech servers, while Java keeps replacing C++ servers. Yes, one needs to code Java with low level tricks like C++, but it is possible and there are many performance experts doing it. How many Fintech servers are running on Go?
            • grumpydba 8y ago
              > I tune C++ compilers, just like I tune Java compilers, in both cases I can decide to do it during AOT compilation or at a later moment How many customers run self-compiled, say mysql binaries? Or mongodb? An tiny minority. Now how many tune cassandra or hadoop jvms? A big chunk. You can use niche cases to make a point (fintech is almost the textbook definition of a niche software use case), however what you say is plain wrong most of the time. Also, I've managed thousands of c++ and thousands of java processes. I'd take c++ ones over java any day.
              • pjmlp 8y ago
                Depends on how many use Gentoo, for example. Proper Cassandra and Hadoop deployments are as niche as Fintech, the large majority could solve their problems with UNIX command line tools. On my world the team manages deployments, I rather take Java over C++ compilation times, and having tools like Mission Control to monitor cluster performance on production servers.
    • pjmlp 8y ago
      C++, .NET also come to mind in the widely area, with OCaml, Haskell failing under the not so widely, but fast umbrella.
      • sacado2 8y ago
        O'caml and Haskell are extremely niche in the web server world, and are not especially faster than go. C# is not blazingly fast either. They all seem to be in the same ballpark.
        • pjmlp 8y ago
          They are all faster than Go in case you haven't been paying attention.
          • sacado2 8y ago
            I've been paying a lot of attention and, in my experience (but also according to the highly biased benchmark game), C#/Java/OCaml/Haskell/Go are in the same league, i.e usually 3-10 times slower than C/C++/Ada/Rust/D, and 3-10 times faster than "scripting" languages like Python/PHP/Ruby/Perl. With (in my experience) go being a little faster than java and haskell, and o'caml being slightly faster than anyone, but nothing significative enough for me to expect an article titled "my Java webapp was too slow so I rewrote it in O'Caml" anytime soon. Benchmarking is very relative, though. I'd be glad to read evidence showing go is significantly slower than any of those in some domain.
            • pjmlp 8y ago
              Techempower is where real benchmarks live, the highly biased benchmark game examples aren't all using the latest features or even best algorithms.
              • sacado2 8y ago
                Thanks a lot, didn't know techempower. Go seems to behave pretty well in these benchmarks, though.
• silasb 8y ago
  Crystal is still pretty young and under pretty active development. For me, the biggest con is the long compile times for Crystal.