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While Google's support was definitely a factor, Go also had some important language features going for it. Most importantly it is targeting a relatively empty n

While Google's support was definitely a factor, Go also had some important language features going for it. Most importantly it is targeting a relatively empty niche in the programming language landscape, i.e. that of high performance, close to the metal languages with little performance overhead, while still being easy to write. "Easy to write" for 80% comes down to being memory-safe, unlike C/C++. If you're in that niche, you have few alternatives. The other options for mainstream memory-safe languages are interpreted scripting languages and Java-style jitted languages. Go easily beats both in resource consumption without being much harder to program in. Rust isn't really comparable because while it is memory-safe its memory management system still forces the programmer to think about the memory and resource usage, thus being slower to program in.

benibela 5y ago
I have always used Pascal for that But no one else does
- GuuD 5y ago
  Go is just shitty Pascal, change my mind. On a more serious note. I decided to read Delphi documentation recently because I’m old enough to hear a lot about it, but not quite old enough to write anything in it. It had discriminated unions. It did! I can’t imagine my life without them, I write stuff exclusively in Ocaml-like languages, so the only question that I have in my mind is “how the hell we managed to go backwards?” It’s so weird.
  - zeroc8 5y ago
    Go has some restrictions, but all in all it's a great little pragmatic language, which solves a lot of practical problems (utf-8 strings, concurrency, garbage collection, cross compilation, single binary deployment, performance, readability) and which I can easily keep in my head as opposed to most of the other languages I've used in my career. In that way it's like a Delphi for the modern world.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      No, Free Pascal is Delphi for the modern world.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    Of course it had. Turbo Pascal had, AFAICR. (Probably because, at a guess, Wirth-standard Pascal did; though I'm less certain about that.)
kaba0 5y ago
How is that different from eg. D? Or the myriad other GCd AOT compiled languages?

benibela 5y ago

I have always used Pascal for that But no one else does

GuuD 5y ago
Go is just shitty Pascal, change my mind. On a more serious note. I decided to read Delphi documentation recently because I’m old enough to hear a lot about it, but not quite old enough to write anything in it. It had discriminated unions. It did! I can’t imagine my life without them, I write stuff exclusively in Ocaml-like languages, so the only question that I have in my mind is “how the hell we managed to go backwards?” It’s so weird.
- zeroc8 5y ago
  Go has some restrictions, but all in all it's a great little pragmatic language, which solves a lot of practical problems (utf-8 strings, concurrency, garbage collection, cross compilation, single binary deployment, performance, readability) and which I can easily keep in my head as opposed to most of the other languages I've used in my career. In that way it's like a Delphi for the modern world.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    No, Free Pascal is Delphi for the modern world.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  Of course it had. Turbo Pascal had, AFAICR. (Probably because, at a guess, Wirth-standard Pascal did; though I'm less certain about that.)

kaba0 5y ago

How is that different from eg. D? Or the myriad other GCd AOT compiled languages?