6 ms·

I've heard great points and experienced myself how utterly legible go is. But nobody on earth has ever praised anything about the language design itself. I wond

by fxfan 7y ago

I've heard great points and experienced myself how utterly legible go is. But nobody on earth has ever praised anything about the language design itself. I wonder if go came from somewhere not google- how would it fare.

icholy 7y ago
Dart also came from Google. Why isn't everyone jumping on that train?
- skybrian 7y ago
  It's kind of irrelevant since it's a different team with a different software niche and design aesthetic, but since you ask: Dart struggled for years to find a killer app, though Flutter now seems to be a good bet. Originally the idea was to replace JavaScript and everyone except TypeScript pretty much failed at that. (I mean failed from a popularity point of view, they often succeeded technically.) I'll also point out that coming from Google is kind of a mixed blessing these days, from a popularity standpoint.
  - ChrisSD 7y ago
    It should be noted that TypeScript succeed by augmenting Javascript, instead of strictly replacing it as most other languages tried to do.
- petre 7y ago
  Dunno. It's a good language, better designed than JavaScript anyway. Maybe Flutter will change that.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- aikah 7y ago
  Dart was born "for the wrong reasons" AKA replacing Javascript, it failed at it. The language itself is quite good, better than Go IMHO, but Go has the advantage of not requiring a separate virtual machine. The problem with languages is whether they get enough momentum so that a community can be built around them. A language without an extensive ecosystem is nothing. Also since Go is "hypocritically Object Oriented", people can claim it's not an object oriented language and kind of write Go like classic structured programming such as C. But Go is OO. You can't write go without using interfaces for I/O.
  - zzzcpan 7y ago
    > You can't write go without using interfaces for I/O. You can and people do that all the time. You don't have to use its standard library I/O APIs, even its syscall package. I'm not disagreeing that Go is OO though. Its ecosystem is dominated by OO. But it's more like Perl in this regard, where you can spend years without writing a single line of OO code yourself even if you have to use other people's OO code.
- apta 7y ago
  One reason perhaps is that TypeScript took over that space, and TypeScript also came from a well known company.
  - lmkg 7y ago
    And, like Go, TypeScript was strongly associated with a lead designer whose name is well-known and who shaped the industry over multiple decades.
    - apta 7y ago
      Except that TypeScript's designer had strong and established experience in language design, and he made a lot of correct choices when implementing TypeScript. Can't say that about golang.
      - Bendingo 7y ago
        I'm not sure if you're casting aspersions on Rob Pike and Ken Thompson. But they are truly giants of computer science giants and they are behind golang. Can't say that about typescript (or any other language I can think of).
        apta 7y ago
        They have contributions, but not in programming language design. I was specific to point that out.
- thosakwe 7y ago
  You could argue that there's a bit of a network effect involved. i.e. it doesn't get much love on HN, Reddit, etc. (just look at the comments on any Flutter thread).
apta 7y ago
> I wonder if go came from somewhere not google- how would it fare. There was a precursor to golang that the some of the same authors worked on before they were at Google. It didn't go anywhere, precisely because it didn't have Google's name behind it.
- sansnomme 7y ago
  I think it was called "C", by Bell Labs folks.
  - apta 7y ago
    Not quite: http://doc.cat-v.org/inferno/4th_edition/limbo_language/ http://doc.cat-v.org/inferno/4th_edition/limbo_language/
- hu3 7y ago
  Ever considered that in 1995 some aspects of Limbo weren't as appealing as they are today and that this played a great deal in its adoption? For example its CSP concurrency model, similar to Go, was hardly pertinent when common processors were 150 MHz Pentiums with 1 core. Completely different scenarios. Not to mention Bell Labs had enormous influence on Computer Science at the time so it's not like Limbo had no strong backing either.
  - apta 7y ago
    > For example its CSP concurrency model, similar to Go, was hardly pertinent when common processors were 150 MHz Pentiums with 1 core. Completely different scenarios. There was always demand for having servers that processed high numbers of requests (e.g. C10K). Just because single core processing was common does not mean that there wasn't need for high concurrency. > Not to mention Bell Labs had enormous influence on Computer Science at the time so it's not like Limbo had no strong backing either. In those days there was less fad driven development compared to what we see today. So the effect wasn't as pronounced.
    - 7y ago

by fxfan 7y ago

icholy 7y ago

Dart also came from Google. Why isn't everyone jumping on that train?

skybrian 7y ago
It's kind of irrelevant since it's a different team with a different software niche and design aesthetic, but since you ask: Dart struggled for years to find a killer app, though Flutter now seems to be a good bet. Originally the idea was to replace JavaScript and everyone except TypeScript pretty much failed at that. (I mean failed from a popularity point of view, they often succeeded technically.) I'll also point out that coming from Google is kind of a mixed blessing these days, from a popularity standpoint.
- ChrisSD 7y ago
  It should be noted that TypeScript succeed by augmenting Javascript, instead of strictly replacing it as most other languages tried to do.
petre 7y ago
Dunno. It's a good language, better designed than JavaScript anyway. Maybe Flutter will change that.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
aikah 7y ago
Dart was born "for the wrong reasons" AKA replacing Javascript, it failed at it. The language itself is quite good, better than Go IMHO, but Go has the advantage of not requiring a separate virtual machine. The problem with languages is whether they get enough momentum so that a community can be built around them. A language without an extensive ecosystem is nothing. Also since Go is "hypocritically Object Oriented", people can claim it's not an object oriented language and kind of write Go like classic structured programming such as C. But Go is OO. You can't write go without using interfaces for I/O.
- zzzcpan 7y ago
  > You can't write go without using interfaces for I/O. You can and people do that all the time. You don't have to use its standard library I/O APIs, even its syscall package. I'm not disagreeing that Go is OO though. Its ecosystem is dominated by OO. But it's more like Perl in this regard, where you can spend years without writing a single line of OO code yourself even if you have to use other people's OO code.
apta 7y ago
One reason perhaps is that TypeScript took over that space, and TypeScript also came from a well known company.
- lmkg 7y ago
  And, like Go, TypeScript was strongly associated with a lead designer whose name is well-known and who shaped the industry over multiple decades.
  - apta 7y ago
    Except that TypeScript's designer had strong and established experience in language design, and he made a lot of correct choices when implementing TypeScript. Can't say that about golang.
    - Bendingo 7y ago
      I'm not sure if you're casting aspersions on Rob Pike and Ken Thompson. But they are truly giants of computer science giants and they are behind golang. Can't say that about typescript (or any other language I can think of).
      - apta 7y ago
        They have contributions, but not in programming language design. I was specific to point that out.
thosakwe 7y ago
You could argue that there's a bit of a network effect involved. i.e. it doesn't get much love on HN, Reddit, etc. (just look at the comments on any Flutter thread).

apta 7y ago

> I wonder if go came from somewhere not google- how would it fare. There was a precursor to golang that the some of the same authors worked on before they were at Google. It didn't go anywhere, precisely because it didn't have Google's name behind it.

sansnomme 7y ago
I think it was called "C", by Bell Labs folks.
- apta 7y ago
  Not quite: http://doc.cat-v.org/inferno/4th_edition/limbo_language/ http://doc.cat-v.org/inferno/4th_edition/limbo_language/
hu3 7y ago
Ever considered that in 1995 some aspects of Limbo weren't as appealing as they are today and that this played a great deal in its adoption? For example its CSP concurrency model, similar to Go, was hardly pertinent when common processors were 150 MHz Pentiums with 1 core. Completely different scenarios. Not to mention Bell Labs had enormous influence on Computer Science at the time so it's not like Limbo had no strong backing either.
- apta 7y ago
  > For example its CSP concurrency model, similar to Go, was hardly pertinent when common processors were 150 MHz Pentiums with 1 core. Completely different scenarios. There was always demand for having servers that processed high numbers of requests (e.g. C10K). Just because single core processing was common does not mean that there wasn't need for high concurrency. > Not to mention Bell Labs had enormous influence on Computer Science at the time so it's not like Limbo had no strong backing either. In those days there was less fad driven development compared to what we see today. So the effect wasn't as pronounced.
  - 7y ago