4 ms·

No language supports the commoditization of programming talent quite like Go. Java gave it a good shot, but Go is much closer to "perfection" in this regard.

by jcadam 7y ago

No language supports the commoditization of programming talent quite like Go. Java gave it a good shot, but Go is much closer to "perfection" in this regard. Using Go feels like mindless clerical work. My industry (defense and govt contracting) is still big into Java, but we traditionally run at least 10 years behind the state of the art. At some point (maybe in another 10 years) I expect to see the cube farms full of Java code monkeys replaced by cube farms full of Golang code monkeys. Big body shops (which is what the majority of my industry is) love mediocrity and overstaffed programs. By that time the cool kids will have moved on to something else. Maybe they'll rediscover OOP or some such.

raducu 7y ago
I fail to see what's wrong with the commoditization of programming -- I assume you think there's something wrong because you use the term "code monkey". Is there some language that's used by cool programmers that allows them to write complex code(equivalent of millions of lines of code written by "code monkeys" -- or 10 lines of code written by the gods) ? Is there a conspiracy against said language that these god programmers write that prevents it from taking over the world (besides the "code monkeys" not being able to learn it? Because in my experience once you get to decently complex projects, the (modern)language doesn't really matter that much. My intuition is the above is applicable even for small projects, and that beyond hand picked examples, the programming language doesn't really matter as long as you're comparing apples to apples -- that is some business functionality, the choice is based just on the ecosystem.
- CoolGuySteve 7y ago
  Yeah but you won't like the answer. It's C.
  - sosodev 7y ago
    Writing your web services in C sounds like a great idea.
    - CoolGuySteve 7y ago
      I've seen enough presentations from Facebook/Google to believe that on a long enough timescale all web services are rewritten in C/C++.
      - alexhutcheson 7y ago
        C++ is a completely different beast from C though. C++ actually has strings.
- jimbokun 7y ago
  "Is there some language that's used by cool programmers that allows them to write complex code(equivalent of millions of lines of code written by "code monkeys" -- or 10 lines of code written by the gods) ?" WhatsApp famously built a company with a billion users, sold for $19 billion, with about 50 engineers, with a product built in Erlang. I think that's the best example of what you're asking about. It's not clear they could have accomplished the same success with any other language.

by jcadam 7y ago

raducu 7y ago

I fail to see what's wrong with the commoditization of programming -- I assume you think there's something wrong because you use the term "code monkey". Is there some language that's used by cool programmers that allows them to write complex code(equivalent of millions of lines of code written by "code monkeys" -- or 10 lines of code written by the gods) ? Is there a conspiracy against said language that these god programmers write that prevents it from taking over the world (besides the "code monkeys" not being able to learn it? Because in my experience once you get to decently complex projects, the (modern)language doesn't really matter that much. My intuition is the above is applicable even for small projects, and that beyond hand picked examples, the programming language doesn't really matter as long as you're comparing apples to apples -- that is some business functionality, the choice is based just on the ecosystem.

CoolGuySteve 7y ago
Yeah but you won't like the answer. It's C.
- sosodev 7y ago
  Writing your web services in C sounds like a great idea.
  - CoolGuySteve 7y ago
    I've seen enough presentations from Facebook/Google to believe that on a long enough timescale all web services are rewritten in C/C++.
    - alexhutcheson 7y ago
      C++ is a completely different beast from C though. C++ actually has strings.
jimbokun 7y ago
"Is there some language that's used by cool programmers that allows them to write complex code(equivalent of millions of lines of code written by "code monkeys" -- or 10 lines of code written by the gods) ?" WhatsApp famously built a company with a billion users, sold for $19 billion, with about 50 engineers, with a product built in Erlang. I think that's the best example of what you're asking about. It's not clear they could have accomplished the same success with any other language.