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Go is a compiled language with comparable performance to Zig/Rust/C in a lot of use cases. It's heavily ergonomic for network/server side programming, it's safe

Go is a compiled language with comparable performance to Zig/Rust/C in a lot of use cases. It's heavily ergonomic for network/server side programming, it's safe, easy to use with a tiny footprint. Rust is not only or even primarily used in embedded or driver programming. Indeed, I see more user space software built in rust than in embedded nowadays. As for Zig, it's so new and alpha that it didn't even find a niche yet. Rust also hasn't yet found a specific niche. It's all over the place in GUI, networking, embedded etc. which isn't a bad thing, to be clear. It might be harder to do embedded in Go but that's not the point here, is it? It's about safety. Go has a special place in that it is compiled, easy to learn, quite performant for most tasks, and safe to boot. > I can believe that abstractions prevent errors, but can't a language allow footguns but have syntax that makes them easy to detect? What would be the point though? If a language can detect footguns, it's time to prevent them which is what Rust does, essentially. Footguns are rarely useful and there's always an alternative way. For these rare cases, Rust includes the unsafe escape hatch but then all bets are off. Don't expect the compiler to help you if you are intent on going down that road.

pjmlp 4y ago
Just point people to F-Secure TamaGo unikernel for embedded firmware as one possible example, https://www.withsecure.com/en/solutions/innovative-security-hardware/usb-armor https://www.withsecure.com/en/solutions/innovative-security-...
galangalalgol 4y ago
A very good point about rust (and c++ and c) being used outside embedded and systems. That's fair. But when people do that, they do it for performance, and go is easily 5x slower in my experience. It feels faster than java because the lower latency makes it feel more responsive, but its takes half again as long to finish the same tasks. And c# absolutely blows its doors off, closer to twice as long as c#. And c# feels responsive as well. And don't all those languages make the same safety guarantees as go? About detecting footguns, I was honestly asking, I thought maybe you could have a borrow checker, but none of the zero cost abstractions that rust uses to make it mostly tolerable. I'm not saying I want to use that language, but I do like explicit languages if they aren't too verbose. Go is a good example of that I think, until you get into the abstractions around parallelism.
- hndc 4y ago
  > "in my experience" Here's some data: https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/performance/nbody.html https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/... Ignoring the programs using x86 intrinsics to do vectorized math, the top-performing Rust, Go, Java, and C# programs are all written in a simple, straightforward style; each is practically a direct translation from the other. The Rust program is fastest, but the others come in at 1.6x, 1.7x, and 1.7x the Rust program, respectively. These are not significant differences for the vast majority of applications. Of course this is one artificial benchmark, and on that website you will find others where the Java, C#, or Go program will do especially well or especially poorly. But it's clear that those three are all roughly in the same performance class..
  - igouy 4y ago
    > … Java, C#, or Go … all roughly in the same performance class. As-in "Notice which box plot IQRs overlap." https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/box-plot-summary-charts.html#chart-fastest https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/...

pjmlp 4y ago

Just point people to F-Secure TamaGo unikernel for embedded firmware as one possible example, https://www.withsecure.com/en/solutions/innovative-security-hardware/usb-armor https://www.withsecure.com/en/solutions/innovative-security-...

galangalalgol 4y ago

A very good point about rust (and c++ and c) being used outside embedded and systems. That's fair. But when people do that, they do it for performance, and go is easily 5x slower in my experience. It feels faster than java because the lower latency makes it feel more responsive, but its takes half again as long to finish the same tasks. And c# absolutely blows its doors off, closer to twice as long as c#. And c# feels responsive as well. And don't all those languages make the same safety guarantees as go? About detecting footguns, I was honestly asking, I thought maybe you could have a borrow checker, but none of the zero cost abstractions that rust uses to make it mostly tolerable. I'm not saying I want to use that language, but I do like explicit languages if they aren't too verbose. Go is a good example of that I think, until you get into the abstractions around parallelism.

hndc 4y ago
> "in my experience" Here's some data: https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/performance/nbody.html https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/... Ignoring the programs using x86 intrinsics to do vectorized math, the top-performing Rust, Go, Java, and C# programs are all written in a simple, straightforward style; each is practically a direct translation from the other. The Rust program is fastest, but the others come in at 1.6x, 1.7x, and 1.7x the Rust program, respectively. These are not significant differences for the vast majority of applications. Of course this is one artificial benchmark, and on that website you will find others where the Java, C#, or Go program will do especially well or especially poorly. But it's clear that those three are all roughly in the same performance class..
- igouy 4y ago
  > … Java, C#, or Go … all roughly in the same performance class. As-in "Notice which box plot IQRs overlap." https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/box-plot-summary-charts.html#chart-fastest https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/...