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Nobody's saying you can't use Go or must use C/C++/Rust. If Go works for you, that's great. The issue is about positioning of Go as a language. It's confusing

by pornel 5y ago

Nobody's saying you can't use Go or must use C/C++/Rust. If Go works for you, that's great. The issue is about positioning of Go as a language. It's confusing due to being (formerly) marketed as a "systems programming language" that is typically a domain of C/C++/Rust, but technically Go fits closer to capabilities of Java or TypeScript.

pjmlp 5y ago
Is writing a compiler, linker, kernel emulation layer, TCP/IP stack or a GPU debugger, systems programming?
- pornel 5y ago
  If you dig deep enough into the Turing Tarpit, you can write these in JavaScript too (in fact, some of these have already been written). It's merely a disagreement about what the label "systems programming" should mean, rather than about capabilities and performance of the Go language. Objectively and undeniably Go relies on garbage collection, and C/C++/Rust don't. Google's implementation of Go prefers fast compilation speed over maximizing run-time efficiency, and C/C++/Rust implementations aim for zero-(runtime)cost abstractions. I hope it's clear there's no argument about the substantial technical differences between these languages. They have clearly different trade-offs, regardless of what name you think is appropriate to use for that difference.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    A disagreement indeed, https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/ProjectOberon/Sources/Kernel.Mod.txt https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/ProjectOberon/Sources/Kerne...
    - pornel 5y ago
      I'm saying forks aren't for eating soup, and you're showing me soups eaten with a fork. In case of languages' general capabilities/applicability, I don't think singular counterexamples are sufficient, because they prove "can", rather than "should". Turing Tarpit means you can push languages way beyond their appropriate use-cases. There are also weird cases like Java smart cards and LISP machines, but I don't think it's useful to use these exceptions to classify Java and LISP as "assembly" or "machine" languages. Go does very well in the network services niche, but you can also write such network services in Bash (determined-enough people have written Bash HTTP servers). You can write small shell utilities in Go too. Does this mean Go and Bash are the same type of language? The lines are blurry, but you have to draw a line somewhere, otherwise every language is a shell scripting systems programming assembly machine language.

by pornel 5y ago

pjmlp 5y ago

Is writing a compiler, linker, kernel emulation layer, TCP/IP stack or a GPU debugger, systems programming?

pornel 5y ago
If you dig deep enough into the Turing Tarpit, you can write these in JavaScript too (in fact, some of these have already been written). It's merely a disagreement about what the label "systems programming" should mean, rather than about capabilities and performance of the Go language. Objectively and undeniably Go relies on garbage collection, and C/C++/Rust don't. Google's implementation of Go prefers fast compilation speed over maximizing run-time efficiency, and C/C++/Rust implementations aim for zero-(runtime)cost abstractions. I hope it's clear there's no argument about the substantial technical differences between these languages. They have clearly different trade-offs, regardless of what name you think is appropriate to use for that difference.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  A disagreement indeed, https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/ProjectOberon/Sources/Kernel.Mod.txt https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/ProjectOberon/Sources/Kerne...
  - pornel 5y ago
    I'm saying forks aren't for eating soup, and you're showing me soups eaten with a fork. In case of languages' general capabilities/applicability, I don't think singular counterexamples are sufficient, because they prove "can", rather than "should". Turing Tarpit means you can push languages way beyond their appropriate use-cases. There are also weird cases like Java smart cards and LISP machines, but I don't think it's useful to use these exceptions to classify Java and LISP as "assembly" or "machine" languages. Go does very well in the network services niche, but you can also write such network services in Bash (determined-enough people have written Bash HTTP servers). You can write small shell utilities in Go too. Does this mean Go and Bash are the same type of language? The lines are blurry, but you have to draw a line somewhere, otherwise every language is a shell scripting systems programming assembly machine language.