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From the response: "..I've noticed that people often use the term “the Go community” without being particularly clear about what they mean. To me, the Go commu

by geodel 7y ago

From the response: "..I've noticed that people often use the term “the Go community” without being particularly clear about what they mean. To me, the Go community is all Go users, which is at least a million people at this point. As such, it's at the very least imprecise to say things like “the Go community wants (or did) X.” I think this is important because some outspoken members seems to have tendency to claim that they represent whole community and they must be heard and responded to even at the cost of quiet community members.

hayd 7y ago
> at least a million people at this point. This seems a little implausible to me, can this really be the case? Edit: Oh, I see the reference in the post https://research.swtch.com/gophercount https://research.swtch.com/gophercount (I'm still skeptical!)
- badamp 7y ago
  No reason to be skeptical, that analysis is pure shit and dismissible on its face. The minor issue is the quantifying of developers. The methodology for the 15-20 million figure isn’t clear, but it at least passes some basic sniff test. What’s completely bullshit is using stackoverflow surveys. There is no reason to believe the respondents of that survey are an unbiased cross section of the 20 million and many reasons to believe they aren’t. I would totally expect the stackoverflow social 2.0 tech hipster webshit crowd that would fill out that dumb survey to be more likely to use Go. The same with oreilly surveys. Old grizzled grey beards aren’t as likely to fill out publisher surveys on old stable tech. Also, answering that you have “used” go is not the same as being a regular developer (as noted by one of the commenters there... assembly is more “popular” than Go).
  - icebraining 7y ago
    Well, as a "stackoverflow social 2.0 tech hipster webshit" (I answered the survey), I fully agree with you that the methodology is beyond suspect, you just can't take those numbers and apply some fudge factor from the top of your head and pretend the result has any credibility. OTOH, regarding > answering that you have “used” go is not the same as being a regular developer The question they ask in the survey is: "Which of the following programming, scripting, and markup languages have you done extensive development work in over the past year, and which do you want to work in over the next year?", so it's more than just having "used" it.
    - badamp 7y ago
      Is that all one question? Then it’s even worse, because then “use” also includes purely aspirational users. Nice. Also I don’t think anyone that participates on this website has any moral superiority over tech hipster webshit. But it’s good to realize this is a skewed demographic.
      - icebraining 7y ago
        Sorry, I wasn't clear: they have two checkboxes for each languages, one for past use and another for future wish.
majewsky 7y ago
On the other hand, this argument can also be used by the powerful to shutdown any grassroots movements. Activist: "Over two million Americans signed our petition. You must do something!" Politician: "So that means over 320 million didn't sign it. The majority clearly likes how things are!"

by geodel 7y ago

hayd 7y ago

> at least a million people at this point. This seems a little implausible to me, can this really be the case? Edit: Oh, I see the reference in the post https://research.swtch.com/gophercount https://research.swtch.com/gophercount (I'm still skeptical!)

badamp 7y ago
No reason to be skeptical, that analysis is pure shit and dismissible on its face. The minor issue is the quantifying of developers. The methodology for the 15-20 million figure isn’t clear, but it at least passes some basic sniff test. What’s completely bullshit is using stackoverflow surveys. There is no reason to believe the respondents of that survey are an unbiased cross section of the 20 million and many reasons to believe they aren’t. I would totally expect the stackoverflow social 2.0 tech hipster webshit crowd that would fill out that dumb survey to be more likely to use Go. The same with oreilly surveys. Old grizzled grey beards aren’t as likely to fill out publisher surveys on old stable tech. Also, answering that you have “used” go is not the same as being a regular developer (as noted by one of the commenters there... assembly is more “popular” than Go).
- icebraining 7y ago
  Well, as a "stackoverflow social 2.0 tech hipster webshit" (I answered the survey), I fully agree with you that the methodology is beyond suspect, you just can't take those numbers and apply some fudge factor from the top of your head and pretend the result has any credibility. OTOH, regarding > answering that you have “used” go is not the same as being a regular developer The question they ask in the survey is: "Which of the following programming, scripting, and markup languages have you done extensive development work in over the past year, and which do you want to work in over the next year?", so it's more than just having "used" it.
  - badamp 7y ago
    Is that all one question? Then it’s even worse, because then “use” also includes purely aspirational users. Nice. Also I don’t think anyone that participates on this website has any moral superiority over tech hipster webshit. But it’s good to realize this is a skewed demographic.
    - icebraining 7y ago
      Sorry, I wasn't clear: they have two checkboxes for each languages, one for past use and another for future wish.

majewsky 7y ago

On the other hand, this argument can also be used by the powerful to shutdown any grassroots movements. Activist: "Over two million Americans signed our petition. You must do something!" Politician: "So that means over 320 million didn't sign it. The majority clearly likes how things are!"