3 ms·

> Go proved that the world will make room for a less capable language (in Go's case, than Java) if it is simpler. Is this a fact, is there consensus on this? D

> Go proved that the world will make room for a less capable language (in Go's case, than Java) if it is simpler. Is this a fact, is there consensus on this? Didn't it just prove that if you are a corporation the size of Google, you can push your libraries or languages that far and make them that popular, just by virtue of forcing some people to use them and spend a lot of resources on guides and development and marketing?

nickm12 6y ago
How does Google force anyone to use Golang? If you are a platform vendor like Apple or Microsoft you can be dictatorial and only support your language of choice; In fact Apple's infamous "section 3.3.1" was going to limit iPhone apps to only use approved languages. But I don't see how Google uses their ecosystem to push Golang. Sure, they use their resources to develop the language and people probably feel better adopting a new language that comes from an established tech company with a lot of resources than one that is purely unfunded open source.
tsimionescu 6y ago
I'm pretty sure most people using Go choose it for the simplicity and low overhead of the runtime, not the language itself. Perhaps the simplicity of the stdlib as well.
- lerax 6y ago
  Simple ecosystem. Static binaries. Simple tools. From day of day code, the ecosystem sometimes matters more than language itself.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    Exactly. Though I would say that Go's tools are anything but simple from my point of view, once you get past the very simplest things. It is much easier to understand how to configure a Maven-based project with multiple modules, where it will get those modules from, and what version numbers everything has, for example, than it is with `go mod`, which has far too much magic and barely documented behaviors still. Also, there's still no good IDE, no good language server, no good refactoring tools, and no good debuggers for Go. Go tooling is still way behind Java, C#, and Node, to name just the ecosystems I've worked with. It's better on the deployment side than C or C++, but worse on the debugging side.

nickm12 6y ago

How does Google force anyone to use Golang? If you are a platform vendor like Apple or Microsoft you can be dictatorial and only support your language of choice; In fact Apple's infamous "section 3.3.1" was going to limit iPhone apps to only use approved languages. But I don't see how Google uses their ecosystem to push Golang. Sure, they use their resources to develop the language and people probably feel better adopting a new language that comes from an established tech company with a lot of resources than one that is purely unfunded open source.

tsimionescu 6y ago

I'm pretty sure most people using Go choose it for the simplicity and low overhead of the runtime, not the language itself. Perhaps the simplicity of the stdlib as well.

lerax 6y ago
Simple ecosystem. Static binaries. Simple tools. From day of day code, the ecosystem sometimes matters more than language itself.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  Exactly. Though I would say that Go's tools are anything but simple from my point of view, once you get past the very simplest things. It is much easier to understand how to configure a Maven-based project with multiple modules, where it will get those modules from, and what version numbers everything has, for example, than it is with `go mod`, which has far too much magic and barely documented behaviors still. Also, there's still no good IDE, no good language server, no good refactoring tools, and no good debuggers for Go. Go tooling is still way behind Java, C#, and Node, to name just the ecosystems I've worked with. It's better on the deployment side than C or C++, but worse on the debugging side.