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How can a language with garbage collection replace C?

• latch 16y ago
  Like you, I obviously don't grok Go. Is the goal to build a modern general purpose language? Or is it to build a better C? I'm not sure how it can succeed at either when when it borrows a so much from C (a language which is at least a couple generations dated when it comes to general purpose languages) while adding garbage collection.
  • kinghajj 16y ago
    The purpose of Go isn't to replace C at what C does best, like being wicked fast and having very direct access to the hardware. It's meant to replace programs that Google used to write in C++, like web servers, data aggregators, etc. Go was designed by Googlers for Googlers, and that's very obvious from both the design and standard libraries.
• EdiX 16y ago
  The point of the article is that the author doesn't like programming languages like C++ and Java and has therefore stuck with C programming. The question the author poses is if Go can replace C for him. In general, Go isn't meant to replace C but to replace C++ and Java. Regarding garbage collections Go has the ability to use unmanaged memory although I haven't had occasion to try that, so I don't know how good it actually is.
  • MatthewPhillips 16y ago
    Go is meant to replace C++ and Java for systems programming. They have no designs on implementing Go to do UI programming, for example, which is where C++ and Java are used more than anywhere else.
    • EdiX 16y ago
      True, but I don't know about the "more than anywhere else" part.