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Go is a language for people that think being able to learn a programming language in a couple of hours makes it good. C-like syntax is not an inherently good th

Go is a language for people that think being able to learn a programming language in a couple of hours makes it good. C-like syntax is not an inherently good thing, it's just familiar. Thus Go is good for people who don't like to learn and/or find learning difficult. Simple constructs such as sum types do not exist in Go. How do you express that a value is either type A or type B in Golang? Go, in its infinite simplicity, does not allow for that, instead it allows you to express that a value can be type A or type B, type A and type B, or neither! Simple right! And then errors! Go takes the simple approach with regards to incorrect code in that it just does not care if your code handles all possible error states or not! Simple, just don't give a shit! If your career is in software and your decision making process for a programming language is "what can I learn in an hour?" then your decision making abilities are questionable.

pphysch 5y ago
You can represent sum types with type assertions on interfaces. Frankly, outside of subjective error handling preferences, I don't see much value in sum types. They encourage building towers of type abstractions and obscure what is happening on the wire.
- friedman23 5y ago
  > obscure what is happening on the wire They obscure nothing, sum types in rust have 0 overhead. You cannot in go faith argue that Go gives a more accurate representation of what occurs "on the wire" than Rust.
  - pphysch 5y ago
taylodl 5y ago
> If your career is in software and your decision making process for a programming language is "what can I learn in an hour?" then your decision making abilities are questionable. I posit Rust has a poor return on investment. If you're going to spend time learning a new language then make it a language that completely changes how you think about programming: something like Clojure, Scheme or Haskell. Even if you never create a single system using these languages you will be a better programmer for having learned them. I'm not so sure the same can be said for Rust.
- friedman23 5y ago
  It's not about learning either. It's about what tool generates the best output.

pphysch 5y ago

You can represent sum types with type assertions on interfaces. Frankly, outside of subjective error handling preferences, I don't see much value in sum types. They encourage building towers of type abstractions and obscure what is happening on the wire.

friedman23 5y ago
> obscure what is happening on the wire They obscure nothing, sum types in rust have 0 overhead. You cannot in go faith argue that Go gives a more accurate representation of what occurs "on the wire" than Rust.
- pphysch 5y ago

taylodl 5y ago

> If your career is in software and your decision making process for a programming language is "what can I learn in an hour?" then your decision making abilities are questionable. I posit Rust has a poor return on investment. If you're going to spend time learning a new language then make it a language that completely changes how you think about programming: something like Clojure, Scheme or Haskell. Even if you never create a single system using these languages you will be a better programmer for having learned them. I'm not so sure the same can be said for Rust.

friedman23 5y ago
It's not about learning either. It's about what tool generates the best output.