2 ms·

Do you mean the language specification is succinct or that code in the language is succinct - I thought Go favoured the former over the latter? Edit: No implie

Do you mean the language specification is succinct or that code in the language is succinct - I thought Go favoured the former over the latter? Edit: No implied criticism of Go intended - while not to my personal taste it seems like a fine language that a lot of people clearly get a lot of value from.

hardwaresofton 6y ago
> Do you mean the language specification is succinct or that code in the language is succinct - I thought Go favoured the former over the latter? Succinct was the wrong word -- for complex things Go is definitely not succinct in that sense you're absolutely right. It's more succinct than Java for doing what I wanted to do (waiting for someone to drop a nice tight Jersey/JAX-RS example in 3...2....1...), but what I should have written was "simple" -- Go code is simple to read and it's much harder to strangle the rest of your team (and your future self) with complexity. > Edit: No implied criticism of Go intended - while not to my personal taste it seems like a fine language that a lot of people clearly get a lot of value from. I would disagree on it being a fine language, but I have watched enough of rob pike and go and the team members' public talks to know that this is exactly what they intended and that's great. It's a pragmatic, powerful language with good performance, and people are deriving a TON of value from it. To be fair I should also note that I am the exact kind of person who Go is not built for -- a yak shaver and amateur type theorist. I'd pick Go over Java in a heartbeat, but I think there are some other good choices out there if you're free to roam.
- valenterry 6y ago
  You describe yourself as a type theorist but would pick go over Java even though it lacks generics? That doesn't seem to fit.
  - hardwaresofton 6y ago
    I’d pick Go over Java for other separate reasons than types. If you’re on the JVM and you want good types I’d look at Scala and Kotlin and maybe clojure first before Java. Java’s type system is pretty wasteful, the marriage of structure and functions is a big mistake, first class functions didn’t land until in 1.8 IIRC, it’s got nullable types but people rarely use Option<T> as much as they should, the list is long. Go gets protocols and interfaces more right in my opinion as well. Maybe I shouldn’t blame Java for not being able to be up on PL research that wasn’t mainstream yet, but Haskell has been around since the 90s. Java’s type system is better than Go’s (because Go’s is almost nonexistent) but it’s getting strangled with Spring soup and the unbelievable ceremony around everything in Java that makes me not want to pick it. If you want good types period, Haskell or Rust.

hardwaresofton 6y ago

> Do you mean the language specification is succinct or that code in the language is succinct - I thought Go favoured the former over the latter? Succinct was the wrong word -- for complex things Go is definitely not succinct in that sense you're absolutely right. It's more succinct than Java for doing what I wanted to do (waiting for someone to drop a nice tight Jersey/JAX-RS example in 3...2....1...), but what I should have written was "simple" -- Go code is simple to read and it's much harder to strangle the rest of your team (and your future self) with complexity. > Edit: No implied criticism of Go intended - while not to my personal taste it seems like a fine language that a lot of people clearly get a lot of value from. I would disagree on it being a fine language, but I have watched enough of rob pike and go and the team members' public talks to know that this is exactly what they intended and that's great. It's a pragmatic, powerful language with good performance, and people are deriving a TON of value from it. To be fair I should also note that I am the exact kind of person who Go is not built for -- a yak shaver and amateur type theorist. I'd pick Go over Java in a heartbeat, but I think there are some other good choices out there if you're free to roam.

valenterry 6y ago
You describe yourself as a type theorist but would pick go over Java even though it lacks generics? That doesn't seem to fit.
- hardwaresofton 6y ago
  I’d pick Go over Java for other separate reasons than types. If you’re on the JVM and you want good types I’d look at Scala and Kotlin and maybe clojure first before Java. Java’s type system is pretty wasteful, the marriage of structure and functions is a big mistake, first class functions didn’t land until in 1.8 IIRC, it’s got nullable types but people rarely use Option<T> as much as they should, the list is long. Go gets protocols and interfaces more right in my opinion as well. Maybe I shouldn’t blame Java for not being able to be up on PL research that wasn’t mainstream yet, but Haskell has been around since the 90s. Java’s type system is better than Go’s (because Go’s is almost nonexistent) but it’s getting strangled with Spring soup and the unbelievable ceremony around everything in Java that makes me not want to pick it. If you want good types period, Haskell or Rust.