6 ms·

If you actually needed performance you couldn't use a garbage collected language. Golang isn't really faster then any other on the same playing field (compiled

If you actually needed performance you couldn't use a garbage collected language. Golang isn't really faster then any other on the same playing field (compiled and with GC).

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
> If you actually needed performance you couldn't use a garbage collected language. This is incorrect; HFT platforms have been written in Java for example (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24895395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24895395). But it's about either tweaking GC settings or mode, or avoiding using the heap entirely if you can. Go is still slow if you (over)use the heap, but at least it gives you the choice and plenty of tooling to analyze it.
- likeabbas 4y ago
  HFT’s have the luxury of a 9am-4:30pm ET trading window and memory being relatively cheap. But things like self driving cars don’t have that luxury. I really like the arena libraries you can use in Rust where you can have logic to free untouchable memory at a specific time.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Which is why real time GCs aren't free beer. https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/perc https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/perc https://www.aicas.com/wp/products-services/jamaicavm/ https://www.aicas.com/wp/products-services/jamaicavm/
- staticassertion 4y ago
  Isn't it like... literally just that one HFT company that did this? I've seen it pointed at for years, but afaik the vast majority use C++.
  - kmarc 4y ago
    Many companies did this in the past. Nowadays Java, Go, etc GCed languages are still used but not for the hot path anymore. They are a couple million times slower than what we need.
  - dabraham1248 4y ago
    No. There's one that made noise about it, but I personally know more than one other from working on their code. Not going to name anyone because I'm not sure they want their tech decisions publicized. Also some performance-sensitive chunks of wall street itself (depending on how you define "wall street itself". And "performance sensitive" (what I worked on was more "high throughput" than "no pauses".).) run on java. TBF, I write a lot of java, so my perspective is probably biased, but I can assure you, it's out there.
zozbot234 4y ago
GC is actually a hard requirement for some problem domains such as anything making heavy use of general graphs. (One well-known example of that is GOFAI applications, which are commonly implemented in LISP.)
- jandrewrogers 4y ago
  > GC is actually a hard requirement for some problem domains such as anything making heavy use of general graphs. This is manifestly false. I used to write general graph analysis kernels on supercomputers. We used (old-style) C++ and never had an issue with memory management. Your assertion is assuming a naive implementation that would have offered poor performance regardless.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    Yes, yes, but not everyone is running on a supercomputer. Sometimes you need to be able to reuse memory by freeing up unneeded objects.
    - setr 4y ago
      You should be doing that with or without a GC… unless you’re running on a missile
    - jandrewrogers 4y ago
      There is no implication that memory is not being reused. You seem to be assuming how graphs are represented in large-scale systems which are not actually correct in practice.
indymike 4y ago
Compared to Python, Ruby and Javascript, Golang is high performance. Compared to C, C++ or assembly language, you sacrifice ergonomics for a bit more performance.
- 411111111111111 4y ago
  https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/ https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/ js actually beats Golang on most metrics if you're aiming for synthetic "web" performances.
kelnos 4y ago
I think "high level of performance" encompasses a wider range of performance levels than you're thinking. Go will be more than fine for the vast majority of servers people need to build. Sure, there are some things where Go might not fit the bill, but that doesn't really matter; Go is still super relevant for writing servers, just as Java (another GC'd language that some people call "slow") is too.
- 411111111111111 4y ago
  I completely agree, but the "high speed" claims by go enthusiasts are really tiresome, because the language is not particularly faster then any other that's compiled and has GC. There are very few languages which are categorically slower then Golang, and these are generally languages which explicitly accepted slow executions for ergonomic reasons such as ruby and python
pjmlp 4y ago
The usual cargo cult against automatically memory management systems.

If you actually needed performance you couldn't use a garbage collected language. Golang isn't really faster then any other on the same playing field (compiled and with GC).

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

> If you actually needed performance you couldn't use a garbage collected language. This is incorrect; HFT platforms have been written in Java for example (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24895395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24895395). But it's about either tweaking GC settings or mode, or avoiding using the heap entirely if you can. Go is still slow if you (over)use the heap, but at least it gives you the choice and plenty of tooling to analyze it.

likeabbas 4y ago
HFT’s have the luxury of a 9am-4:30pm ET trading window and memory being relatively cheap. But things like self driving cars don’t have that luxury. I really like the arena libraries you can use in Rust where you can have logic to free untouchable memory at a specific time.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Which is why real time GCs aren't free beer. https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/perc https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/perc https://www.aicas.com/wp/products-services/jamaicavm/ https://www.aicas.com/wp/products-services/jamaicavm/
staticassertion 4y ago
Isn't it like... literally just that one HFT company that did this? I've seen it pointed at for years, but afaik the vast majority use C++.
- kmarc 4y ago
  Many companies did this in the past. Nowadays Java, Go, etc GCed languages are still used but not for the hot path anymore. They are a couple million times slower than what we need.
- dabraham1248 4y ago
  No. There's one that made noise about it, but I personally know more than one other from working on their code. Not going to name anyone because I'm not sure they want their tech decisions publicized. Also some performance-sensitive chunks of wall street itself (depending on how you define "wall street itself". And "performance sensitive" (what I worked on was more "high throughput" than "no pauses".).) run on java. TBF, I write a lot of java, so my perspective is probably biased, but I can assure you, it's out there.

zozbot234 4y ago

GC is actually a hard requirement for some problem domains such as anything making heavy use of general graphs. (One well-known example of that is GOFAI applications, which are commonly implemented in LISP.)

jandrewrogers 4y ago
> GC is actually a hard requirement for some problem domains such as anything making heavy use of general graphs. This is manifestly false. I used to write general graph analysis kernels on supercomputers. We used (old-style) C++ and never had an issue with memory management. Your assertion is assuming a naive implementation that would have offered poor performance regardless.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  Yes, yes, but not everyone is running on a supercomputer. Sometimes you need to be able to reuse memory by freeing up unneeded objects.
  - setr 4y ago
    You should be doing that with or without a GC… unless you’re running on a missile
  - jandrewrogers 4y ago
    There is no implication that memory is not being reused. You seem to be assuming how graphs are represented in large-scale systems which are not actually correct in practice.

indymike 4y ago

Compared to Python, Ruby and Javascript, Golang is high performance. Compared to C, C++ or assembly language, you sacrifice ergonomics for a bit more performance.

411111111111111 4y ago
https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/ https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/ js actually beats Golang on most metrics if you're aiming for synthetic "web" performances.

kelnos 4y ago

I think "high level of performance" encompasses a wider range of performance levels than you're thinking. Go will be more than fine for the vast majority of servers people need to build. Sure, there are some things where Go might not fit the bill, but that doesn't really matter; Go is still super relevant for writing servers, just as Java (another GC'd language that some people call "slow") is too.

411111111111111 4y ago
I completely agree, but the "high speed" claims by go enthusiasts are really tiresome, because the language is not particularly faster then any other that's compiled and has GC. There are very few languages which are categorically slower then Golang, and these are generally languages which explicitly accepted slow executions for ergonomic reasons such as ruby and python

pjmlp 4y ago

The usual cargo cult against automatically memory management systems.