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It was also the #21 (37% of respondents) most dreaded. For context, the “love” rating was a 62% response, so that means it’s something like a 2:1 love to dread

It was also the #21 (37% of respondents) most dreaded. For context, the “love” rating was a 62% response, so that means it’s something like a 2:1 love to dread ratio. At my current company it’s definitely leadership pushing for Go and not the other way around, and lots of startups have chosen Go early and are stuck to it inflexibly. Edit: I retract this. Looks like the metrics are simply inverses (even though they shouldn’t be).

tptacek 5y ago
This is deeply silly (so is that "dreaded" metric). Go is here less dreaded than Julia and Swift, two enthusiast-driven languages, as well as Ruby, and is just 2 slots up from Python. You gave away the game when you pointed out it was the "#21 most dreaded". What is anyone supposed to do with that very specific number?
- ironmagma 5y ago
  The whole survey is fuzzy data of course, it could even be the same people dreading a language as loving it. That’s why I provided the percentage respondents. Citing either one as the value of a language is of course dubious, but if we’re acknowledging one metric we may as well acknowledge the other.
  - morelisp 5y ago
    > it could even be the same people dreading a language as loving it Are they not literally inverses of each other? It's two ways of stating the same number, not something you can take as two data points.
    - ironmagma 5y ago
      The survey doesn’t say how the data was collected, but there has to at least be a middle “neutral” option because the two numbers don’t always add to 100%. Semantically they are opposites, but so are love and hate, and we know that a person can love and hate another person at the same time, or so the songs tell us.
      - morelisp 5y ago
        They do always add up to 100%.
        ironmagma 5y ago
        I think you’re right, it was confusing because sometimes it was only to 99% but that’s probably rounding. Disappointing and a poor survey methodology or at least poor presentation. There are definitely some languages I both love and dread, like Java and it would be nice to see those as separate metrics.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    It would be one thing if Go was one of the top 5 most loved and one of the top 5 most dreaded languages. That would suggest (imperfectly, but meaningfully) that it was a polarizing language. But it's the #21st most dreaded language; it is less dreaded than Julia, which is a pure enthusiast language. Your data point actually doesn't show anything. I think you'd be on rhetorically surer footing just arguing that these surveys don't mean anything. The fact of the matter is that while Go certainly has a squadron of haters on message boards (it made several design decisions that were almost precision-targeted to alienate PL connoisseurs), huge numbers of working programmers really like Go. It's silly to argue that isn't true.
    - ironmagma 5y ago
      It is looking like I was wrong about the dreaded metric and that it’s actually just an inverse. If so, I have a strong disagreement with the way this data was collected. That said, what matters is the actual qualities of a language rather than how popular it is.
      - morelisp 5y ago
        Geez, just take the L.
        ironmagma 5y ago
        Like I said previously, citing any of these values to prove a point is dubious. That said I have retracted my top level comment and admitted that my analysis is wrong. What more do you want?
        throwaway894345 5y ago
        Props for admitting your error, but falling back to “there must be a problem with the way the data was collected (because it contradicts my priors)” isn’t particularly admirable.
        5y ago
- Google234 5y ago
  You would really put Swift over rust as an enthusiast-driven language??
  - tptacek 5y ago
    No, I didn't mention Rust at all. Resist the impulse to reduce everything to zero-sum competitions between languages.
throwaway894345 5y ago
> lots of startups have chosen Go early and are stuck to it inflexibly. Is the implication here that it's a common experience among startups to pick Go and regret the decision? Can you give any evidence to support this (e.g., a survey of startups that chose Go and whether or not they regret their decision)? Or perhaps the implication is that Go is uniquely difficult to migrate away from? I have a hard time believing that--it's expensive to change languages across the board except for a handful of special cases that were designed for interop from the start (e.g., Java and Kotlin, C and C++, etc)--I don't see anything that makes Go uniquely difficult to migrate away from.
- ironmagma 5y ago
  There’s no implication intended, it’s just related information that I have which could spark a discussion. (I obtained it through speaking to a lot of companies I’ve been interviewing with in the past weeks.) I’m sure Go is possible to migrate from, it’s just that companies that have it are decided on it and not interested in alternatives.
beforeolives 5y ago
> It was also the #21 (37% of respondents) most dreaded. This could trick someone who doesn't know that there are 25 languages in that survey and that the most dreaded chart is just an inverse of the most loved chart. You could also say that Typescript is the #24 most dreaded language (32.9% of respondents)... it's also the second most loved language. Rust is the #25 most dreaded language (because there are 25 languages on that list). https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted-languages-dreaded https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-mo...
- ironmagma 5y ago
  Rust is an 86% to 14% ratio (6:1 love to dread) which would for example mean it’s less controversial. Not that I put any stake into these numbers.
  - beforeolives 5y ago
    It's important to note that Rust is not used nearly as much commercially which means that most of the people who use it are enthusiasts who like the language. So when you have a metric like > % of developers who are developing with the language or technology and have expressed interest in continuing to develop with it you then get a very strong selection effect which is the main reason why Rust has been at the top of that survey for a number of years now.

tptacek 5y ago

This is deeply silly (so is that "dreaded" metric). Go is here less dreaded than Julia and Swift, two enthusiast-driven languages, as well as Ruby, and is just 2 slots up from Python. You gave away the game when you pointed out it was the "#21 most dreaded". What is anyone supposed to do with that very specific number?

ironmagma 5y ago
The whole survey is fuzzy data of course, it could even be the same people dreading a language as loving it. That’s why I provided the percentage respondents. Citing either one as the value of a language is of course dubious, but if we’re acknowledging one metric we may as well acknowledge the other.
- morelisp 5y ago
  > it could even be the same people dreading a language as loving it Are they not literally inverses of each other? It's two ways of stating the same number, not something you can take as two data points.
  - ironmagma 5y ago
    The survey doesn’t say how the data was collected, but there has to at least be a middle “neutral” option because the two numbers don’t always add to 100%. Semantically they are opposites, but so are love and hate, and we know that a person can love and hate another person at the same time, or so the songs tell us.
    - morelisp 5y ago
      They do always add up to 100%.
      - ironmagma 5y ago
        I think you’re right, it was confusing because sometimes it was only to 99% but that’s probably rounding. Disappointing and a poor survey methodology or at least poor presentation. There are definitely some languages I both love and dread, like Java and it would be nice to see those as separate metrics.
- tptacek 5y ago
  It would be one thing if Go was one of the top 5 most loved and one of the top 5 most dreaded languages. That would suggest (imperfectly, but meaningfully) that it was a polarizing language. But it's the #21st most dreaded language; it is less dreaded than Julia, which is a pure enthusiast language. Your data point actually doesn't show anything. I think you'd be on rhetorically surer footing just arguing that these surveys don't mean anything. The fact of the matter is that while Go certainly has a squadron of haters on message boards (it made several design decisions that were almost precision-targeted to alienate PL connoisseurs), huge numbers of working programmers really like Go. It's silly to argue that isn't true.
  - ironmagma 5y ago
    It is looking like I was wrong about the dreaded metric and that it’s actually just an inverse. If so, I have a strong disagreement with the way this data was collected. That said, what matters is the actual qualities of a language rather than how popular it is.
    - morelisp 5y ago
      Geez, just take the L.
      - ironmagma 5y ago
        Like I said previously, citing any of these values to prove a point is dubious. That said I have retracted my top level comment and admitted that my analysis is wrong. What more do you want?
        throwaway894345 5y ago
        Props for admitting your error, but falling back to “there must be a problem with the way the data was collected (because it contradicts my priors)” isn’t particularly admirable.
        5y ago
Google234 5y ago
You would really put Swift over rust as an enthusiast-driven language??
- tptacek 5y ago
  No, I didn't mention Rust at all. Resist the impulse to reduce everything to zero-sum competitions between languages.

throwaway894345 5y ago

> lots of startups have chosen Go early and are stuck to it inflexibly. Is the implication here that it's a common experience among startups to pick Go and regret the decision? Can you give any evidence to support this (e.g., a survey of startups that chose Go and whether or not they regret their decision)? Or perhaps the implication is that Go is uniquely difficult to migrate away from? I have a hard time believing that--it's expensive to change languages across the board except for a handful of special cases that were designed for interop from the start (e.g., Java and Kotlin, C and C++, etc)--I don't see anything that makes Go uniquely difficult to migrate away from.

ironmagma 5y ago
There’s no implication intended, it’s just related information that I have which could spark a discussion. (I obtained it through speaking to a lot of companies I’ve been interviewing with in the past weeks.) I’m sure Go is possible to migrate from, it’s just that companies that have it are decided on it and not interested in alternatives.

beforeolives 5y ago

> It was also the #21 (37% of respondents) most dreaded. This could trick someone who doesn't know that there are 25 languages in that survey and that the most dreaded chart is just an inverse of the most loved chart. You could also say that Typescript is the #24 most dreaded language (32.9% of respondents)... it's also the second most loved language. Rust is the #25 most dreaded language (because there are 25 languages on that list). https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted-languages-dreaded https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-mo...

ironmagma 5y ago
Rust is an 86% to 14% ratio (6:1 love to dread) which would for example mean it’s less controversial. Not that I put any stake into these numbers.
- beforeolives 5y ago
  It's important to note that Rust is not used nearly as much commercially which means that most of the people who use it are enthusiasts who like the language. So when you have a metric like > % of developers who are developing with the language or technology and have expressed interest in continuing to develop with it you then get a very strong selection effect which is the main reason why Rust has been at the top of that survey for a number of years now.