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Go is like a superior version of Java. Rust is like a superior version of C++. I wouldn't use Java or C++ any more for a new project, barring some very specific

by lacker 5y ago

Go is like a superior version of Java. Rust is like a superior version of C++. I wouldn't use Java or C++ any more for a new project, barring some very specific reason. But I might use either Go or Rust depending on the project's priorities. These criticisms of Go are basically correct, but it does have some advantages over Rust, like in some situations absolute performance is not so important, copying strings around a lot is okay, and dealing with the borrow checker is extra needless work.

brabel 5y ago
> Go is like a superior version of Java How can someone claim that kind of thing without being joking is beyond me... Go might have some platform features that may be better than Java (i.e. crosscompilation to native on every OS) but as a language?? What exactly does it do better???
dkarl 5y ago
I don't think I would classify Go with Java. I would not use Go to write a system with a rich domain model and lots of business logic. Java, in its own dated and awful way, is designed to cope with complexity. Go is designed to punish it. Go is the language you design when you have absolute conviction that whenever you feel forced to write complex code, you need to rethink your solution instead. It is not a language you would design if you were doing business application programming and were forced to model unbounded amounts of complexity beyond your control. (Java admittedly didn't originate that way, but it sure looks like it did.)
- jfengel 5y ago
  It is odd that Java was conceived for set-top boxes. Even before generics were added, it was clearly a language aimed at establishing and enforcing contracts in a largish team over long development cycles. You can see it in the Hello, World program, which has a lot of weight you wouldn't need for space and time constrained programs on a set-top box. Gosling was obviously inspired by C++ ("without the guns, clubs and knives", as he said), which itself adds a lot of the complexity to support large-scale projects, features that C was lacking. I'm not entirely sure he thought about it much past that.
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by lacker 5y ago

brabel 5y ago

> Go is like a superior version of Java How can someone claim that kind of thing without being joking is beyond me... Go might have some platform features that may be better than Java (i.e. crosscompilation to native on every OS) but as a language?? What exactly does it do better???

dkarl 5y ago

I don't think I would classify Go with Java. I would not use Go to write a system with a rich domain model and lots of business logic. Java, in its own dated and awful way, is designed to cope with complexity. Go is designed to punish it. Go is the language you design when you have absolute conviction that whenever you feel forced to write complex code, you need to rethink your solution instead. It is not a language you would design if you were doing business application programming and were forced to model unbounded amounts of complexity beyond your control. (Java admittedly didn't originate that way, but it sure looks like it did.)

jfengel 5y ago
It is odd that Java was conceived for set-top boxes. Even before generics were added, it was clearly a language aimed at establishing and enforcing contracts in a largish team over long development cycles. You can see it in the Hello, World program, which has a lot of weight you wouldn't need for space and time constrained programs on a set-top box. Gosling was obviously inspired by C++ ("without the guns, clubs and knives", as he said), which itself adds a lot of the complexity to support large-scale projects, features that C was lacking. I'm not entirely sure he thought about it much past that.

deleted 5y ago

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