4 ms·

They do have a few little DSLs, which I dislike: struct tags (optional, I prefer to avoid), magic comments which provide build directives (this seems icky to me

They do have a few little DSLs, which I dislike: struct tags (optional, I prefer to avoid), magic comments which provide build directives (this seems icky to me, but avoids breaking Go1 promises I guess). https://dave.cheney.net/2018/01/08/gos-hidden-pragmas https://dave.cheney.net/2018/01/08/gos-hidden-pragmas

throwaway894345 5y ago
I don't want to be too contrarian, but I'm not aware of any library which uses struct tags to encode anything that anyone might call a DSL. At most, they're used for key-value pairs (e.g., `foo:bar`), which is pretty easy to get one's head around. I don't use build directives and ideally we wouldn't need them, but most (all?) mainstream compiled languages have them. Maybe the complaint is that they don't get their own dedicated syntax, in which case I don't see the issue beyond "in $MY_PREFERED_LANG, build directives have their own syntax, and that's how I like it!". In all cases, these issues seem positively trivial compared to "you can't parse JSON or send an HTTP request until you learn some DSL or cargo-cult someone else's build file".
- jerf 5y ago
  "I'm not aware of any library which uses struct tags to encode anything that anyone might call a DSL." There's a couple of struct validation libraries that got IMHO a bit overexcited with what you can jam in a struct tag and then interpret, but they don't seem to have gotten very popular, so it doesn't factor into the language much.
- grey-area 5y ago
  Have a look at some of the bugs related to struct tags (420 open ones) - they can control marshalling and have lots of little directives in them like omitempty,attr,-,set plus they combine too (for xml,json,asn1 etc) and you can stuff your own little language in too if you want, the possibilities are endless! They are a set of limited yet unvalidated translation DSLs stuffed into a string. https://github.com/golang/go/search?p=4&q=struct+tags&type=issues https://github.com/golang/go/search?p=4&q=struct+tags&type=i... Personally I think the language would be better without them, but it's too late now. Re build directives - the complaint is they are comments which do things and change code/compilation, the syntax I don't care about, but I do care that they've abused comments to do this. I agree, these problems are pretty trivial, I don't lose sleep over them.

throwaway894345 5y ago

I don't want to be too contrarian, but I'm not aware of any library which uses struct tags to encode anything that anyone might call a DSL. At most, they're used for key-value pairs (e.g., `foo:bar`), which is pretty easy to get one's head around. I don't use build directives and ideally we wouldn't need them, but most (all?) mainstream compiled languages have them. Maybe the complaint is that they don't get their own dedicated syntax, in which case I don't see the issue beyond "in $MY_PREFERED_LANG, build directives have their own syntax, and that's how I like it!". In all cases, these issues seem positively trivial compared to "you can't parse JSON or send an HTTP request until you learn some DSL or cargo-cult someone else's build file".

jerf 5y ago
"I'm not aware of any library which uses struct tags to encode anything that anyone might call a DSL." There's a couple of struct validation libraries that got IMHO a bit overexcited with what you can jam in a struct tag and then interpret, but they don't seem to have gotten very popular, so it doesn't factor into the language much.
grey-area 5y ago
Have a look at some of the bugs related to struct tags (420 open ones) - they can control marshalling and have lots of little directives in them like omitempty,attr,-,set plus they combine too (for xml,json,asn1 etc) and you can stuff your own little language in too if you want, the possibilities are endless! They are a set of limited yet unvalidated translation DSLs stuffed into a string. https://github.com/golang/go/search?p=4&q=struct+tags&type=issues https://github.com/golang/go/search?p=4&q=struct+tags&type=i... Personally I think the language would be better without them, but it's too late now. Re build directives - the complaint is they are comments which do things and change code/compilation, the syntax I don't care about, but I do care that they've abused comments to do this. I agree, these problems are pretty trivial, I don't lose sleep over them.