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> But otherwise I am super happy with writing Go code. All my pet peeves of something like modern Java or C# are gone. I'm always confused by this. Why do peop

by mbesto 6y ago

> But otherwise I am super happy with writing Go code. All my pet peeves of something like modern Java or C# are gone. I'm always confused by this. Why do people consistency cherry pick specific languages to compare then when those languages offer fundamentally different paradigms? I understand comparing C/C++ vs Go, but isn't obvious that C# is going to be fundamentally different than Go?

Agingcoder 6y ago
Yes it's obvious, but it doesn't prevent OP from liking go more than c#/java. Furthermore, its very likely that the languages people 'cherry pick' are actually languages they use everyday. So they just compare 'new everyday language' to 'previous everyday languages', and just tell you whether they're happier or not when they write code. The point is not really about the language theoretical properties and merits, but how people experience the language in real life.
simiones 6y ago
C# and Java are much closer to Go than C++. C is also closer from another perspective (simplistic syntax). C++ is about as far from Go as you can imagine a language. Maybe only Prolog would be a worse comparison point. C++ is designed with one goal in mind: no special compiler built-ins. If it is possible to do it at all, it can be done in a 3rd party library. C++'s design philosophy is Library first. Bjarne Stroustroup explicitly advocates this: don't write special case code. Write a library that solves the problem, then use that library to achieve your special case. Go doesn't think writing libraries is a useful endeavor for most programmers: they should be writing application code, and let their betters design the tools they need, build them into the compiler, and stop wasting time designing your own abstractions.
- mbesto 6y ago
  > C++ is about as far from Go as you can imagine a language. Maybe only Prolog would be a worse comparison point. https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2012/06/less-is-exponentially-more.html https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2012/06/less-is-exponenti... /headscratch EDIT: I think you're misinterpreting syntax of the language with use case. e.g. low level vs high level programming language
  - simiones 6y ago
    I'm not talking about either syntax nor use case, but about language philosophy, the approach to problem solving embodied in the language - the "paradigm" as you called it. As that post points out, even inside Google, the C++ committee members had a vastly different vision than Rob Pike on what makes a language good. C++11 is essentially universally loved in the C++ community as a giant step forward, as are most subsequent revisions. Rob apparently hates them. Even the article shows that Go and C++ are fundamentally at odds philosophically, in terms of their paradigm: > Jokes aside, I think it's because Go and C++ are profoundly different philosophically. > C++ is about having it all there at your fingertips. I found this quote on a C++11 FAQ: > The range of abstractions that C++ can express elegantly, flexibly, and at zero costs compared to hand-crafted specialized code has greatly increased. > That way of thinking just isn't the way Go operates. Zero cost isn't a goal, at least not zero CPU cost. Go's claim is that minimizing programmer effort is a more important consideration. If you want to compare them on use cases, Go is far too slow and memory hungry to be used in most domains where C++ is actually necessary. That is, for any C++ program that could be re-written in Go, you could also re-write it in Java or C# or Haskell, bar a few problems around startup times and binary sizes. And that is what has been seen, again as the post points out: C++ programmers are not switching to Go. Ruby and Python and (Java and C#) programmers are. Also, the designers of C++ have never made any effort to think about how easy the language is to learn, unlike the designers of Go, Java and C#. In fact, all of these languages share a common heritage: they are all designed as answers to C++, in slightly different ways.
    - mbesto 6y ago
      > That is, for any C++ program that could be re-written in Go, you could also re-write it in Java or C# or Haskell, bar a few problems around startup times and binary sizes. Nearly any program can be written any language. I can write in functional programming using Ruby, but why on earth would I do that when Haskell is "out of the box" useful for an application where functional programming makes the most sense. > Ruby and Python and (Java and C#) programmers are. Dynamic, object orientated based programmers are switching to Go when the use case suits. My understanding is that the syntax and philosophies are much more aligned to people of those backgrounds (Erlang -> Elixir is a great example of this) and gives them access to a lower-level language without having to learn many of the common more "computer sciency" things that are involved with those languages (C++/C).

by mbesto 6y ago

Agingcoder 6y ago

Yes it's obvious, but it doesn't prevent OP from liking go more than c#/java. Furthermore, its very likely that the languages people 'cherry pick' are actually languages they use everyday. So they just compare 'new everyday language' to 'previous everyday languages', and just tell you whether they're happier or not when they write code. The point is not really about the language theoretical properties and merits, but how people experience the language in real life.

simiones 6y ago

C# and Java are much closer to Go than C++. C is also closer from another perspective (simplistic syntax). C++ is about as far from Go as you can imagine a language. Maybe only Prolog would be a worse comparison point. C++ is designed with one goal in mind: no special compiler built-ins. If it is possible to do it at all, it can be done in a 3rd party library. C++'s design philosophy is Library first. Bjarne Stroustroup explicitly advocates this: don't write special case code. Write a library that solves the problem, then use that library to achieve your special case. Go doesn't think writing libraries is a useful endeavor for most programmers: they should be writing application code, and let their betters design the tools they need, build them into the compiler, and stop wasting time designing your own abstractions.

mbesto 6y ago
> C++ is about as far from Go as you can imagine a language. Maybe only Prolog would be a worse comparison point. https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2012/06/less-is-exponentially-more.html https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2012/06/less-is-exponenti... /headscratch EDIT: I think you're misinterpreting syntax of the language with use case. e.g. low level vs high level programming language
- simiones 6y ago
  I'm not talking about either syntax nor use case, but about language philosophy, the approach to problem solving embodied in the language - the "paradigm" as you called it. As that post points out, even inside Google, the C++ committee members had a vastly different vision than Rob Pike on what makes a language good. C++11 is essentially universally loved in the C++ community as a giant step forward, as are most subsequent revisions. Rob apparently hates them. Even the article shows that Go and C++ are fundamentally at odds philosophically, in terms of their paradigm: > Jokes aside, I think it's because Go and C++ are profoundly different philosophically. > C++ is about having it all there at your fingertips. I found this quote on a C++11 FAQ: > The range of abstractions that C++ can express elegantly, flexibly, and at zero costs compared to hand-crafted specialized code has greatly increased. > That way of thinking just isn't the way Go operates. Zero cost isn't a goal, at least not zero CPU cost. Go's claim is that minimizing programmer effort is a more important consideration. If you want to compare them on use cases, Go is far too slow and memory hungry to be used in most domains where C++ is actually necessary. That is, for any C++ program that could be re-written in Go, you could also re-write it in Java or C# or Haskell, bar a few problems around startup times and binary sizes. And that is what has been seen, again as the post points out: C++ programmers are not switching to Go. Ruby and Python and (Java and C#) programmers are. Also, the designers of C++ have never made any effort to think about how easy the language is to learn, unlike the designers of Go, Java and C#. In fact, all of these languages share a common heritage: they are all designed as answers to C++, in slightly different ways.
  - mbesto 6y ago
    > That is, for any C++ program that could be re-written in Go, you could also re-write it in Java or C# or Haskell, bar a few problems around startup times and binary sizes. Nearly any program can be written any language. I can write in functional programming using Ruby, but why on earth would I do that when Haskell is "out of the box" useful for an application where functional programming makes the most sense. > Ruby and Python and (Java and C#) programmers are. Dynamic, object orientated based programmers are switching to Go when the use case suits. My understanding is that the syntax and philosophies are much more aligned to people of those backgrounds (Erlang -> Elixir is a great example of this) and gives them access to a lower-level language without having to learn many of the common more "computer sciency" things that are involved with those languages (C++/C).