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In general good "experienced professional programmers" don't have one "tool of choice" but their tool of choice varies by what they're doing. I would choose Go

In general good "experienced professional programmers" don't have one "tool of choice" but their tool of choice varies by what they're doing. I would choose Go for a lot of things, but not for everything.

jpgvm 6y ago
Whilst I generally agree with this it's definitely the case that experience leads you to prefer certain tools over others even when they may both be usable for a specific task. i.e Go is relatively well suited for a simplistic web service. But even if I don't expect to need to extend it I would still prefer to write it in something that is more extension friendly than Go. Therein lies the problem. Go actually isn't better than other tools at most things so if you don't actually have a tool of choice than Go is rarely the best choice assuming you are comfortable with a large range of tools. Building a database? C++/Rust (arguably JVM) are better choices. Building a correctness critical piece of software? Rust/Haskell are likely better choices if this is your main constraint. Building a big data pipeline? JVM language of choice is probably the clear winner because of sheer ecosystem momentum. Building a large web application? JVM/C# are miles ahead of the competition here. Building a bunch of microservices? This is probably one case where Go actually does reasonably well, if you work hard architecturally to constraint to complexity of each service it can do OK here. Unfortunately, just OK. JVM/C# probably still beat it out here because of better tooling. Building a kernel? C/C++/Rust/D/Zig. GC is a non-starter. Building a browser? See above. Once again, I could go on. Go can be used for lots of these but all of the tools above are better for each of these domains. So if you are an experienced professional with a wide array of languages at your disposal what are you going to pick Go for?
- sswezey 6y ago
  I like the lack of enterprise layers that Java espouses, the simply deploys of a single binary, built in support for JSON and a perform at HTTP server. A code base that is accessible from the high level all the day to the fundamentals of the standard library. If I can’t find documentation, I can read Go code and grok it instantly. There is one style - gofmt style. Honestly, I rarely need genetics and I prefer the simplicity over over-engineered templates classes in Java and C++. If I need to do concurrency, it’s super simple and easier to get performant than Java or C++. Working with junior developers? They can learn Go in a week. Good luck with C++ and to a degree Java with the norm of relying on layers of Beans and XML frameworks.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- dvirsky 6y ago
  If you consider all the trade-offs (performance / simplicity / security / etc), and you need to create robust RPC services, whether microservices or outward facing API frontends - Go (to me at least) will be the best choice considering all aspects (C++ may be faster but harder to write/debug in, Java more widely adopted but a nightmare in every other aspect, Python easier but slower and less stable, etc etc). Think about successful tools use Go - they would have been a nightmare in some aspect in most other languages. Can you imagine Kubernetes in Java? Docker in Python? It shines where it shines for a reason.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    > Can you imagine Kubernetes in Java? Yes, I can, that is how it was originally prototyped and due to pressure of Go advocates on the team it got rewritten in Go. However given that Go type system isn't as advanced as Java, the result wasn't the best one. "The clusterfuck hidden in the Kubernetes code base" https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/kubernetesclusterfuck/ https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/kubernetesclu... "Fixing the Kubernetes clusterfuck" https://fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/kubernetes/ https://fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/kubernetes/

jpgvm 6y ago

Whilst I generally agree with this it's definitely the case that experience leads you to prefer certain tools over others even when they may both be usable for a specific task. i.e Go is relatively well suited for a simplistic web service. But even if I don't expect to need to extend it I would still prefer to write it in something that is more extension friendly than Go. Therein lies the problem. Go actually isn't better than other tools at most things so if you don't actually have a tool of choice than Go is rarely the best choice assuming you are comfortable with a large range of tools. Building a database? C++/Rust (arguably JVM) are better choices. Building a correctness critical piece of software? Rust/Haskell are likely better choices if this is your main constraint. Building a big data pipeline? JVM language of choice is probably the clear winner because of sheer ecosystem momentum. Building a large web application? JVM/C# are miles ahead of the competition here. Building a bunch of microservices? This is probably one case where Go actually does reasonably well, if you work hard architecturally to constraint to complexity of each service it can do OK here. Unfortunately, just OK. JVM/C# probably still beat it out here because of better tooling. Building a kernel? C/C++/Rust/D/Zig. GC is a non-starter. Building a browser? See above. Once again, I could go on. Go can be used for lots of these but all of the tools above are better for each of these domains. So if you are an experienced professional with a wide array of languages at your disposal what are you going to pick Go for?

sswezey 6y ago
I like the lack of enterprise layers that Java espouses, the simply deploys of a single binary, built in support for JSON and a perform at HTTP server. A code base that is accessible from the high level all the day to the fundamentals of the standard library. If I can’t find documentation, I can read Go code and grok it instantly. There is one style - gofmt style. Honestly, I rarely need genetics and I prefer the simplicity over over-engineered templates classes in Java and C++. If I need to do concurrency, it’s super simple and easier to get performant than Java or C++. Working with junior developers? They can learn Go in a week. Good luck with C++ and to a degree Java with the norm of relying on layers of Beans and XML frameworks.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dvirsky 6y ago
If you consider all the trade-offs (performance / simplicity / security / etc), and you need to create robust RPC services, whether microservices or outward facing API frontends - Go (to me at least) will be the best choice considering all aspects (C++ may be faster but harder to write/debug in, Java more widely adopted but a nightmare in every other aspect, Python easier but slower and less stable, etc etc). Think about successful tools use Go - they would have been a nightmare in some aspect in most other languages. Can you imagine Kubernetes in Java? Docker in Python? It shines where it shines for a reason.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  > Can you imagine Kubernetes in Java? Yes, I can, that is how it was originally prototyped and due to pressure of Go advocates on the team it got rewritten in Go. However given that Go type system isn't as advanced as Java, the result wasn't the best one. "The clusterfuck hidden in the Kubernetes code base" https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/kubernetesclusterfuck/ https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/kubernetesclu... "Fixing the Kubernetes clusterfuck" https://fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/kubernetes/ https://fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/kubernetes/