5 ms·

What don't you like about go's design? I see this sentiment all the time that go is poorly designed. What I don't see all the time is why people have this idea.

What don't you like about go's design? I see this sentiment all the time that go is poorly designed. What I don't see all the time is why people have this idea. Is it because its not as strongly typed or mathematically obsessed as other languages? Is it because it doesn't add much that is deeply novel like e.g. Rust?

fileeditview 6y ago
I think people dislike Go because it is missing the fancy feelings. I am more convinced every year that a lot of programmers just love complexity. Simple things will be blown up and abstracted 3 times. This is still possible with Go of course but it is not as easy as with other languages. Go is like a rusty old hammer that will just work and there are not too many ways to hold it. I like Go for this. I think it has a great design. I can do most things from the top of my head. Code reviews are less painful. And I like that the language evolves more slowly and does not pile every crap idea on top of itself. I also know that a language doesn't have to fill every niche.. In the end Go is a productivity language. If you want to get stuff done it is an excellent choice. If you want to muse about the beauty or correctness of your code there probably are better choices.
- valenterry 6y ago
  I initially just wanted to let your post stay uncommented, but I also don't want people to get the wrong idea, so here is my comment to your last sentence: > In the end Go is a productivity language. If you want to get stuff done it is an excellent choice. Maybe for mediocre developers. And there are a lot of them and that is totally okay - everyone has been one at some point. But more experienced and developers who do their job with passion and strive to improve, will be limited by the language very quickly which makes them much less productive. Therefore, with good developers, go will reduce productivity in comparison to some other languages.
  - fileeditview 6y ago
    What a nonsense. If you are limited by a language then maybe you just chose the wrong language for the job. I guess your argument about the vast ecosystem of go libraries and tools is that they are all created by mediocre programmers? Another note: most of us are "mediocre" and many of those who think they are somehow great, often turn out to be just "mediocre" themselves when put into a certain situation. And maybe you are truly a genius, only work alone and Go really limits you. You are free to choose whatever language you want. But don't project your outlier experience onto everybody or even onto teams of people with vastly different skill levels.
    - valenterry 6y ago
      > Another note: most of us are "mediocre" and many of those who think they are somehow great, often turn out to be just "mediocre" themselves when put into a certain situation. Yeah I fully agree - there is nothing bad about that at all. But that does not change what I'm trying to say: once you grow more skills have more experience (which happens to most people), go starts to limit you a lot more than other languages. No "genius" needed. And it's not only me thinking that if you look at the other responses here. So, hype go as an easy language to learn? Fine by me! Hype it as a language that is more productive than others? I have to disagree.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Surprisingly I have been getting stuff done 30 years before Go got invented, with more expressive languages.
  - fileeditview 6y ago
    Wouldn't have thought it to be necessary to say explicitly but here it comes: You can also get stuff done with other languages. Big surprise.
- filleduchaos 6y ago
  > Go is like a rusty old hammer that will just work and there are not too many ways to hold it. And there are non-rusty hammers that also "just work" and don't exactly introduce an insurmountable dilemma when it comes to holding them, as well as having pretty basic variations to the hammer head that actually make it easier to "get stuff done" (such as a claw or a peen). But the people using the rusty hammer like to pretend as though anything other than the most basic form of a hammer (double flat head on a handle) is just "fancy feelings" driven musing about "beauty or correctness".
  - philosopher1234 6y ago
    This is the type of comment I'm talking about. You clearly have strong feelings about Go, and have shared a metaphor to express your distaste for it, but I have learned nothing about why you feel this way. Would you mind sharing? What is this "insurmountable dilemma" or the "basic variations to the hammer head" you're referencing? As its written, your comment reads more like language warfare than discussion
    - filleduchaos 6y ago
      > You clearly have strong feelings about Go, and have shared a metaphor to express your distaste for it I was extending an analogy that was already presented. The context is, funnily enough, right above my comment if you'd like to read it. And I don't have strong feelings about Go; its existence is ultimately irrelevant to me as a dev. I do have strong feelings about a certain cadre of Go enthusiasts, however. > What is this "insurmountable dilemma" It doesn't exist. That's the point. Said enthusiasts like to pretend as if everybody else is absolutely drowning in a dilemma of which way to achieve X in their language of choice, while Go is for "getting stuff done"™, because obviously no-one ever did anything apart from bikeshedding prior to Go's appearance. > or the "basic variations to the hammer head" Any number of programming language features/concepts which some Go enthusiasts like to decry as unbearably fanciful complexity. If it's not in Go then it must be Bad regardless of being objectively superior to whatever Go offers as a replacement. Parametric polymorphism is perhaps the most infamous of these, and even with the Go team moving forward with a specification for generics there are still people that complain about the language losing its "simplicity". > As its written, your comment reads more like language warfare than discussion Of course. And relegating people's preferences in their work tools to "musing about beauty and correctness" (presented as caring less about productivity) is "discussion" not language warfare.
valenterry 6y ago
I didn't say that I don't like go's design, but there are no features in go that justify the hype it gets. That's all. Rust for instance is not among greatest when it comes to language features either (the borrow checker is quite a thing though), but it combines lowlevel/performance with FP and language features that enable a high level of abstraction. I'm not really a Rust fun either, but that is a personal opinion and has nothing to do with my impression of if the hype is justified.
csharptwdec19 6y ago
Not person you're replying to but I'll bite. I think Go has some pretty good thoughts behind it's design. That is not to say that it is perfect by a long shot. Lack of generics is the main reason I've not actually tried to write any. But I've looked at some, and even helped debug a tiny bit. And that was the -nice- thing about it; the patterns are simple enough that you can learn it quickly. The drawback is that you have to write a LOT of code (or Interface hackery) to make complex things. And, on one hand, the syntax is still the same. On the other hand it's still more code to write. I think about C# a lot when I think about Go's simplicity; I'd argue there's a sweet-spot in C# where you COULD write code that is expressive and easy to understand but still more flexible. However, at this point there are 3.5 different ways I can think of off the top of my head to go through an Array/List in the language. In Go there's usually not too many ways to do the needful. That's an advantage for newcomers, but the proverbial ceiling isn't glass; it's hard iron, and you can't go above it.
higerordermap 6y ago
Dude it is not because mathematical obsession or something we dislike Go. Consider checking whether an element `e` is in collection xs JS: xs.includes(e) Python: e in xs Java: xs.indexOf(e) != 1 C++: std::find(xs.begin(), xs.end(), e) != xs.end() It is already pretty verbose in C++. Go: contains := false for _,x := range xs { if x == e { contains = true break } } Some fanboys claim Go is readable. Readability is not about conveying what each line does in micro level, it is about conveying __Intent__. Go is nothing more than C as far as facilities to convey intent are concerned.

fileeditview 6y ago

I think people dislike Go because it is missing the fancy feelings. I am more convinced every year that a lot of programmers just love complexity. Simple things will be blown up and abstracted 3 times. This is still possible with Go of course but it is not as easy as with other languages. Go is like a rusty old hammer that will just work and there are not too many ways to hold it. I like Go for this. I think it has a great design. I can do most things from the top of my head. Code reviews are less painful. And I like that the language evolves more slowly and does not pile every crap idea on top of itself. I also know that a language doesn't have to fill every niche.. In the end Go is a productivity language. If you want to get stuff done it is an excellent choice. If you want to muse about the beauty or correctness of your code there probably are better choices.

valenterry 6y ago
I initially just wanted to let your post stay uncommented, but I also don't want people to get the wrong idea, so here is my comment to your last sentence: > In the end Go is a productivity language. If you want to get stuff done it is an excellent choice. Maybe for mediocre developers. And there are a lot of them and that is totally okay - everyone has been one at some point. But more experienced and developers who do their job with passion and strive to improve, will be limited by the language very quickly which makes them much less productive. Therefore, with good developers, go will reduce productivity in comparison to some other languages.
- fileeditview 6y ago
  What a nonsense. If you are limited by a language then maybe you just chose the wrong language for the job. I guess your argument about the vast ecosystem of go libraries and tools is that they are all created by mediocre programmers? Another note: most of us are "mediocre" and many of those who think they are somehow great, often turn out to be just "mediocre" themselves when put into a certain situation. And maybe you are truly a genius, only work alone and Go really limits you. You are free to choose whatever language you want. But don't project your outlier experience onto everybody or even onto teams of people with vastly different skill levels.
  - valenterry 6y ago
    > Another note: most of us are "mediocre" and many of those who think they are somehow great, often turn out to be just "mediocre" themselves when put into a certain situation. Yeah I fully agree - there is nothing bad about that at all. But that does not change what I'm trying to say: once you grow more skills have more experience (which happens to most people), go starts to limit you a lot more than other languages. No "genius" needed. And it's not only me thinking that if you look at the other responses here. So, hype go as an easy language to learn? Fine by me! Hype it as a language that is more productive than others? I have to disagree.
pjmlp 6y ago
Surprisingly I have been getting stuff done 30 years before Go got invented, with more expressive languages.
- fileeditview 6y ago
  Wouldn't have thought it to be necessary to say explicitly but here it comes: You can also get stuff done with other languages. Big surprise.
filleduchaos 6y ago
> Go is like a rusty old hammer that will just work and there are not too many ways to hold it. And there are non-rusty hammers that also "just work" and don't exactly introduce an insurmountable dilemma when it comes to holding them, as well as having pretty basic variations to the hammer head that actually make it easier to "get stuff done" (such as a claw or a peen). But the people using the rusty hammer like to pretend as though anything other than the most basic form of a hammer (double flat head on a handle) is just "fancy feelings" driven musing about "beauty or correctness".
- philosopher1234 6y ago
  This is the type of comment I'm talking about. You clearly have strong feelings about Go, and have shared a metaphor to express your distaste for it, but I have learned nothing about why you feel this way. Would you mind sharing? What is this "insurmountable dilemma" or the "basic variations to the hammer head" you're referencing? As its written, your comment reads more like language warfare than discussion
  - filleduchaos 6y ago
    > You clearly have strong feelings about Go, and have shared a metaphor to express your distaste for it I was extending an analogy that was already presented. The context is, funnily enough, right above my comment if you'd like to read it. And I don't have strong feelings about Go; its existence is ultimately irrelevant to me as a dev. I do have strong feelings about a certain cadre of Go enthusiasts, however. > What is this "insurmountable dilemma" It doesn't exist. That's the point. Said enthusiasts like to pretend as if everybody else is absolutely drowning in a dilemma of which way to achieve X in their language of choice, while Go is for "getting stuff done"™, because obviously no-one ever did anything apart from bikeshedding prior to Go's appearance. > or the "basic variations to the hammer head" Any number of programming language features/concepts which some Go enthusiasts like to decry as unbearably fanciful complexity. If it's not in Go then it must be Bad regardless of being objectively superior to whatever Go offers as a replacement. Parametric polymorphism is perhaps the most infamous of these, and even with the Go team moving forward with a specification for generics there are still people that complain about the language losing its "simplicity". > As its written, your comment reads more like language warfare than discussion Of course. And relegating people's preferences in their work tools to "musing about beauty and correctness" (presented as caring less about productivity) is "discussion" not language warfare.

valenterry 6y ago

I didn't say that I don't like go's design, but there are no features in go that justify the hype it gets. That's all. Rust for instance is not among greatest when it comes to language features either (the borrow checker is quite a thing though), but it combines lowlevel/performance with FP and language features that enable a high level of abstraction. I'm not really a Rust fun either, but that is a personal opinion and has nothing to do with my impression of if the hype is justified.

csharptwdec19 6y ago

Not person you're replying to but I'll bite. I think Go has some pretty good thoughts behind it's design. That is not to say that it is perfect by a long shot. Lack of generics is the main reason I've not actually tried to write any. But I've looked at some, and even helped debug a tiny bit. And that was the -nice- thing about it; the patterns are simple enough that you can learn it quickly. The drawback is that you have to write a LOT of code (or Interface hackery) to make complex things. And, on one hand, the syntax is still the same. On the other hand it's still more code to write. I think about C# a lot when I think about Go's simplicity; I'd argue there's a sweet-spot in C# where you COULD write code that is expressive and easy to understand but still more flexible. However, at this point there are 3.5 different ways I can think of off the top of my head to go through an Array/List in the language. In Go there's usually not too many ways to do the needful. That's an advantage for newcomers, but the proverbial ceiling isn't glass; it's hard iron, and you can't go above it.

higerordermap 6y ago

Dude it is not because mathematical obsession or something we dislike Go. Consider checking whether an element `e` is in collection xs JS: xs.includes(e) Python: e in xs Java: xs.indexOf(e) != 1 C++: std::find(xs.begin(), xs.end(), e) != xs.end() It is already pretty verbose in C++. Go: contains := false for _,x := range xs { if x == e { contains = true break } } Some fanboys claim Go is readable. Readability is not about conveying what each line does in micro level, it is about conveying __Intent__. Go is nothing more than C as far as facilities to convey intent are concerned.