7 ms·

Programming languages have a large amount of irreducible complexity. A page long spec for a language more complex than Brainfuck cannot represent the critical d

Programming languages have a large amount of irreducible complexity. A page long spec for a language more complex than Brainfuck cannot represent the critical distinctions correctly. Without that clarity, you end up with incompatible, spec-compliant implementations. This is a disaster, and so below a certain point relative to language complexity a shorter spec is simply wrong.

metadat 4y ago
Are there nasty divergences between official go and cgo?
- josephcsible 4y ago
  As it turns out, Go's spec is 105 pages long, not just one as was claimed upthread: https://go.dev/ref/spec https://go.dev/ref/spec So the answer to your question is "not that I know of", but that's not evidence that a one-page spec is workable after all.
  - metadat 4y ago
    Thank you for showing us the light, jospehcsible!
  - hajile 4y ago
    Can you describe a coherent and consistent multithreaded model completely in 100 pages?
randomdata 4y ago
> Without that clarity, you end up with incompatible, spec-compliant implementations. The Go team officially maintains two implementations, gc and gccgo, to ensure that implementation doesn't end up ruling over the specification as has happened in other languages. There are also other third party implementations, including tinygo. Which spec-induced incompatibilities across these implementations are you referring to?
- oxnrtr 4y ago
  Go doesn't have a one-page spec, so what do you expect the GP to point to? You are proving his point.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    Looks like one page to me: https://go.dev/ref/spec https://go.dev/ref/spec
    - oxnrtr 4y ago
      Yeah, no.
      - randomdata 4y ago
        Feel free to show us the second page.
        josephcsible 4y ago
        It starts about 2/3 of the way through the table of contents.
        randomdata 4y ago
        A link is fine.
        josephcsible 4y ago
        https://go.dev/ref/spec#:~:text=Declarations%20and%20scope-,Label%20scopes,-Blank%20identifier https://go.dev/ref/spec#:~:text=Declarations%20and%20scope-,...
        randomdata 4y ago
        That points to the same page.

metadat 4y ago

Are there nasty divergences between official go and cgo?

josephcsible 4y ago
As it turns out, Go's spec is 105 pages long, not just one as was claimed upthread: https://go.dev/ref/spec https://go.dev/ref/spec So the answer to your question is "not that I know of", but that's not evidence that a one-page spec is workable after all.
- metadat 4y ago
  Thank you for showing us the light, jospehcsible!
- hajile 4y ago
  Can you describe a coherent and consistent multithreaded model completely in 100 pages?

randomdata 4y ago

> Without that clarity, you end up with incompatible, spec-compliant implementations. The Go team officially maintains two implementations, gc and gccgo, to ensure that implementation doesn't end up ruling over the specification as has happened in other languages. There are also other third party implementations, including tinygo. Which spec-induced incompatibilities across these implementations are you referring to?

oxnrtr 4y ago
Go doesn't have a one-page spec, so what do you expect the GP to point to? You are proving his point.
- randomdata 4y ago
  Looks like one page to me: https://go.dev/ref/spec https://go.dev/ref/spec
  - oxnrtr 4y ago
    Yeah, no.
    - randomdata 4y ago
      Feel free to show us the second page.
      - josephcsible 4y ago
        It starts about 2/3 of the way through the table of contents.
        randomdata 4y ago
        A link is fine.
        josephcsible 4y ago
        https://go.dev/ref/spec#:~:text=Declarations%20and%20scope-,Label%20scopes,-Blank%20identifier https://go.dev/ref/spec#:~:text=Declarations%20and%20scope-,...
        randomdata 4y ago
        That points to the same page.