3 ms·

Yeah it is a strange choice, maybe just reflecting what the creators of Go are used to. They have always had null and haven't had any problems with it, why chan

Yeah it is a strange choice, maybe just reflecting what the creators of Go are used to. They have always had null and haven't had any problems with it, why change? Null made since in the early days of C, an option type back then would have been prohibitively expensive. Today, not so, any language that can afford garbage collection, the cost of an option type is lost in the noise, and modern compilers can often optimize the cost away entirely. (though that would hurt Go's fast compile times a little bit)

iudqnolq 6y ago
Rust has a zero-runtime-cost Option<T>. Presuming T is a non-nullable pointer it compiles to something that uses the nullpointer to store the None varient. (This isn't a special-case for Option in the compiler, this optimization applies to any two-varient enum where one varient can store a pointer and the other varient stores nothing).
- higerordermap 6y ago
  Early C compilers were not optimising compilers. The hardware was very limited. Although I would agree it was possible to design the language much better to avoid Null, most buffer overflows etc.., C was not designed to be good from PL standpoint. It was designed to write something and then evolved.
  - morelisp 6y ago
    Early C compilers were non-optimizing compilers because C is among the hardest languages to optimize, not because the hardware was limited. Frances Allen described C as a "serious regression" in language design which "destroyed our ability to advance the state of the art in automatic optimization" because of how its semantics blocked most known optimizing transformations.
masklinn 6y ago
> Null made since in the early days of C, an option type back then would have been prohibitively expensive. Of course not. Option types are as old as C, and they don't cost anything more at runtime than a regular pointer, or a union tag, costs.

iudqnolq 6y ago

Rust has a zero-runtime-cost Option<T>. Presuming T is a non-nullable pointer it compiles to something that uses the nullpointer to store the None varient. (This isn't a special-case for Option in the compiler, this optimization applies to any two-varient enum where one varient can store a pointer and the other varient stores nothing).

higerordermap 6y ago
Early C compilers were not optimising compilers. The hardware was very limited. Although I would agree it was possible to design the language much better to avoid Null, most buffer overflows etc.., C was not designed to be good from PL standpoint. It was designed to write something and then evolved.
- morelisp 6y ago
  Early C compilers were non-optimizing compilers because C is among the hardest languages to optimize, not because the hardware was limited. Frances Allen described C as a "serious regression" in language design which "destroyed our ability to advance the state of the art in automatic optimization" because of how its semantics blocked most known optimizing transformations.

masklinn 6y ago

> Null made since in the early days of C, an option type back then would have been prohibitively expensive. Of course not. Option types are as old as C, and they don't cost anything more at runtime than a regular pointer, or a union tag, costs.