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If you get a pebble stuck in your shoe, you can usually get over it within a couple minutes, and start to ignore the minor annoyance. But if it stays there all

If you get a pebble stuck in your shoe, you can usually get over it within a couple minutes, and start to ignore the minor annoyance. But if it stays there all day, it could eventually get pretty painful. It all depends on how much walking you do.

weberc2 7y ago
And to the parent’s point, most people simply learn to remove the pebble in the first month. ;)
- matt_kantor 7y ago
  The pebble is still there, but most people learn to walk in such a way that they don't put their full weight on that part of their foot. This might not be the most efficient way to walk, but once you've done it for a while it starts to feel natural.
  - weberc2 7y ago
    And then you switch to Go thereby removing the metaphorical pebble, but you have to relearn how to walk efficiently. See how pointless this is?
    - matt_kantor 7y ago
      I guess you just don't like the metaphor? I thought you had misinterpreted it, so I was trying to help clarify by extending the metaphor. In case we're still misunderstanding each other: the pebble is the language's warts, which you can't remove, only avoid or work around. Every language has its warts, but we're talking about Go's here. You don't have to be rude about it.
      - weberc2 7y ago
        I wasn't being rude, and I understood your point. I was pointing out that the metaphor can as easily be used to support Go's position as the critics' position. The metaphor lacks substance. Criticism != rude.
        matt_kantor 7y ago
        "See how pointless this is?" sounded very snippy in my head, but perhaps I didn't read it charitably enough.
User23 7y ago
Also you might be getting paid a significant fraction of a million bucks a year to walk around with that pebble in your shoe.
bborud 7y ago
I used Java as my primary language for about a decade and, to borrow your analogy, experienced a shoe that had quite a few pebbles in it from the outset. What happened over time was that we developed a way of using Java that was less painful. And it turned out that the bones of Java are actually quite good. If you strip away a lot of the cruft people glom onto their code in the belief that it saves them time, adopt sensible ideas from how other languages want you to think, and keep things very minimal and consistent, Java can actually be quite pleasant. But this requires you to have someone in your company that can teach people. Often peope with many years of experience who will initially insist on not changing their ways. (The main reason I don't like Java isn't down to the language itself. It is because I don't trust Oracle. It took me nearly a decade to ditch Java as my primary language, but Go provided me with a viable option. Sure, it'll take some time still to reach the level I was at in Java, but after about 3 years, things still look good)

weberc2 7y ago

And to the parent’s point, most people simply learn to remove the pebble in the first month. ;)

matt_kantor 7y ago
The pebble is still there, but most people learn to walk in such a way that they don't put their full weight on that part of their foot. This might not be the most efficient way to walk, but once you've done it for a while it starts to feel natural.
- weberc2 7y ago
  And then you switch to Go thereby removing the metaphorical pebble, but you have to relearn how to walk efficiently. See how pointless this is?
  - matt_kantor 7y ago
    I guess you just don't like the metaphor? I thought you had misinterpreted it, so I was trying to help clarify by extending the metaphor. In case we're still misunderstanding each other: the pebble is the language's warts, which you can't remove, only avoid or work around. Every language has its warts, but we're talking about Go's here. You don't have to be rude about it.
    - weberc2 7y ago
      I wasn't being rude, and I understood your point. I was pointing out that the metaphor can as easily be used to support Go's position as the critics' position. The metaphor lacks substance. Criticism != rude.
      - matt_kantor 7y ago
        "See how pointless this is?" sounded very snippy in my head, but perhaps I didn't read it charitably enough.

User23 7y ago

Also you might be getting paid a significant fraction of a million bucks a year to walk around with that pebble in your shoe.

bborud 7y ago

I used Java as my primary language for about a decade and, to borrow your analogy, experienced a shoe that had quite a few pebbles in it from the outset. What happened over time was that we developed a way of using Java that was less painful. And it turned out that the bones of Java are actually quite good. If you strip away a lot of the cruft people glom onto their code in the belief that it saves them time, adopt sensible ideas from how other languages want you to think, and keep things very minimal and consistent, Java can actually be quite pleasant. But this requires you to have someone in your company that can teach people. Often peope with many years of experience who will initially insist on not changing their ways. (The main reason I don't like Java isn't down to the language itself. It is because I don't trust Oracle. It took me nearly a decade to ditch Java as my primary language, but Go provided me with a viable option. Sure, it'll take some time still to reach the level I was at in Java, but after about 3 years, things still look good)