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> Who cares if it’s cheap and tiring, it’s the truth. You do realize that is a matter of personal opinion, right? There's plenty of developers who like the lan

• ratww 4y ago
  No. It's not a matter of personal opinion. Go indeed lacks "several features, including safety features, that help people perform their job better". Whether you're one of those people and whether the language really needs those features is a different issue. But when it comes to modern languages Go stands out for lacking several important features. And of course no language "needs" most features: as long as it's Turing Complete it can do anything. But Turing Completeness is the lowest bar possible, and in the real world you need more. What people are trying to have here is starting discussion of possible paths for the language to grow, no matter how crude that "start" is. It is "cheap" criticism? Sure, but it is valid criticism to the language. Sure, you can call those comments useless, but that's not what you're doing. What you're doing instead is taking language criticism personally, and then directing personal attacks at people making them. That's why your post was flagged, btw.
  • Matl 4y ago
    > No. It's not a matter of personal opinion. Go indeed lacks "several features, including safety features, that help people perform their job better". That is a subjective statement. There's no objective list of language features that make a programmer's job better. I'd like to see optional types in Go, but I can't say that it would objectively make the vast majority of programs I've written better, not to say about the wider community. I liked the error handling proposal from the Go team, but the wider community rejected it. Was it 'objectively bad'? I could go on and on. > What people are trying to have here is starting discussion of possible paths for the language to grow, no matter how crude that "start" is. It is "cheap" criticism? Sure, My problem is exactly that this is not the case. You don't start a discussion on 'possible paths' towards improvement without actually discussing any concrete path. Take a look at Swift for example, which even its original author stepped away from due to in part constant onslaught of features at the expense of wider design considerations, (as he perceived it). Go could certainly go faster, but I do think the 'how fast' is a delicate balance that doesn't have a simple answer. It merely looks like the typical HN mantra on programming languages. It's like posting about Rust in every thread on C++. I am someone who happens to like Rust but I don't think doing that would win us many fans. In many ways OP's criticism is even less concrete.
    • ratww 4y ago
      > There's no objective list of language features that make a programmer's job better. Quite the contrary, the list is often very objective. People know what makes them more productive. It’s just not a single list for everyone. This is why people engage in language criticism: to push for features THEY want. You say “don’t use the language”, we say “we use what we want, maybe you don’t use the features”. > You don't start a discussion on 'possible paths' towards improvement without actually discussing any concrete path. Read the whole thread. It started with concrete paths: functional operators like map/reduce/etc. The suggestion was promptly dismissed by the people against changes in Golang by calling it “type system fidget spinners”. That’s a lowbrow dismissal and an attempt to nuke civility. The poster you attacked was replying to that. So they must “propose changes” on every single post, even on meta posts replying to your crowd? The only people behaving badly here so far are the anti-change people. This is what I’m addressing. I’m not asking for features. I’m asking for your crowd to stop behaving like children.
      • Matl 4y ago
        > Read the whole thread. It started with concrete paths: functional operators like map/reduce/etc. I did and did not find your characterization accurate. > The suggestion was promptly dismissed by the people against changes in Golang by calling it “type system fidget spinners”. There was some of that, but there was also a genuine and accurate response to the suggestion saying that with generics now being part of the language it is a case of getting them settled, (i.e. the exp/constraints package) and see what could they be utilized for in the standard library. What you're asking for already exists as 3rd party packages so as generics are adopted in the stdlib in 1.19 and later there's no reason not to have map/filter/reduce in the stdlib as well, there's certainly no opposition to it from the core contributors or the community on the whole. The fact that the focus is on the 'fidget spinners' comment and not the one explaining the situation in detail is curious indeed.
        • ratww 4y ago
          The reason I'm focusing on the fidget spinner guy and you because those are a grandparent of the posts we're currently writing and replying to. If I wanted to reply to the other posts I would do so below those posts. I merely upvoted PhilippGille because he provided a good answer and continued with my day. We're in a chain of comments. I suggest clicking on "parent" until you get to the post I'm talking about and you'll understand better. Just because someone else was civilised once in an unrelated thread (and, as far as I know, PhilippGille is not affiliated to you) doesn't make YOUR behaviour right. Start owning up your mistakes. The explanation from Phillipp is satisfactory but isn't part of this thread, and doesn't excuse the lack of civility and personal attacks from you. Nor does it erase the fact that what you're asking for (a discussion starting with what can be improved in Go) was provided from the get-go. Seriously: the only real issue here is YOUR lack of civility. Not Golang, not the people criticising it. Own up your own mistakes. Maybe work on your issues too. Rather than picking apart and dissecting my replies and other people's, maybe try addressing YOUR behaviour at least once. You're the one whose post was flagged. It's not justified by anyone else's post.