3 ms·

Almost 40% of respondents either use generics or want to use generics. That's a pretty quick uptake given the decade of loud, prominent voices shouting that go

by hajile 4y ago

Almost 40% of respondents either use generics or want to use generics. That's a pretty quick uptake given the decade of loud, prominent voices shouting that go didn't need and shouldn't have generics.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
LukeShu 4y ago
> loud, prominent voices shouting that go didn't need and shouldn't have generics The party line has always[1] been that generics would be nice to have, but "We haven't yet found a design that gives value proportionate to the complexity, although we continue to think about it." The prominent voices had been saying "the need is overstated", not "there is no need"; but I understand[2] why so many hear it wrong. [1]: Language FAQ, from Nov 11, 2009; one day after the 1.0 release: https://web.archive.org/web/20091113154906/http://golang.org/doc/go_lang_faq.html#generics https://web.archive.org/web/20091113154906/http://golang.org... [2]: Nuanced communication usually doesn't work at scale: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30128061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30128061
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  > Proportionate to the complexity If many people like it and find it useful then their armchair calculation of the complexity tradeoff might have been totally wrong.
summerlight 4y ago
Yeah, I firmly believe that those purist voices have been over-represented. From 2019, they seems to change the keyword aggregation methodology in Go Dev Survey and the portion of generic just skyrocketed (https://go.dev/blog/survey2019-results https://go.dev/blog/survey2019-results) to 79%. And even before that generic had been always one of the top complaints.
randomdata 4y ago
Random internet comments don't mean anything. Nobody who mattered said that Go didn't need generics. In fact, Ian Lance Taylor, the lead behind getting generics in Go, has been working on adding generics to Go inside Google since before any of us outside of Google had even heard of Go. It was always explicitly on the table. It just took a long time, after many failed proposals, to find a solution that didn't come with unacceptable compromises.
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  A lot of self-selected (not just any random programmer) Go programmers wanted generics according to the survey. So Go programmers who are motivated enough to find and answer such a survey don’t matter? Actually scratch that, I was wrong. The opinions of regular programmers not mattering is after all one of the philosophies behind the invention of Go.
- throw_m239339 4y ago
  > Random internet comments don't mean anything. These weren't random internet comments, these were a bunch of well known gatekeepers in the main go mailing list trying to gaslight everybody else and threatening to quit Go if Go ever added generics. Obviously that didn't work and now these people have lost any form of power they thought they have. But these are very public people I won't name here. > Nobody who mattered said that Go didn't need generics. Well I guess these people clearly don't matter now, since they are still on the mailing list despite their threats... > It was always explicitly on the table. No it wasn't, Rob Pike himself was clearly not interested in adding generics and the effort truly began when Pike left the Go team. Let's not try to rewrite history.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    > these were a bunch of well known gatekeepers in the main go mailing list Celebrity status doesn't make someone's comments any less random. > Let's not try to rewrite history. No need to rewrite anything. It was written right on golang.org for most, if not all, of Go's public life. Though obviously no longer relevant these days. The various generics proposals (eight of them, if I recall correctly) were also published publicly.

by hajile 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

LukeShu 4y ago

> loud, prominent voices shouting that go didn't need and shouldn't have generics The party line has always[1] been that generics would be nice to have, but "We haven't yet found a design that gives value proportionate to the complexity, although we continue to think about it." The prominent voices had been saying "the need is overstated", not "there is no need"; but I understand[2] why so many hear it wrong. [1]: Language FAQ, from Nov 11, 2009; one day after the 1.0 release: https://web.archive.org/web/20091113154906/http://golang.org/doc/go_lang_faq.html#generics https://web.archive.org/web/20091113154906/http://golang.org... [2]: Nuanced communication usually doesn't work at scale: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30128061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30128061

avgcorrection 4y ago
> Proportionate to the complexity If many people like it and find it useful then their armchair calculation of the complexity tradeoff might have been totally wrong.

summerlight 4y ago

Yeah, I firmly believe that those purist voices have been over-represented. From 2019, they seems to change the keyword aggregation methodology in Go Dev Survey and the portion of generic just skyrocketed (https://go.dev/blog/survey2019-results https://go.dev/blog/survey2019-results) to 79%. And even before that generic had been always one of the top complaints.

randomdata 4y ago

Random internet comments don't mean anything. Nobody who mattered said that Go didn't need generics. In fact, Ian Lance Taylor, the lead behind getting generics in Go, has been working on adding generics to Go inside Google since before any of us outside of Google had even heard of Go. It was always explicitly on the table. It just took a long time, after many failed proposals, to find a solution that didn't come with unacceptable compromises.

avgcorrection 4y ago
A lot of self-selected (not just any random programmer) Go programmers wanted generics according to the survey. So Go programmers who are motivated enough to find and answer such a survey don’t matter? Actually scratch that, I was wrong. The opinions of regular programmers not mattering is after all one of the philosophies behind the invention of Go.
throw_m239339 4y ago
> Random internet comments don't mean anything. These weren't random internet comments, these were a bunch of well known gatekeepers in the main go mailing list trying to gaslight everybody else and threatening to quit Go if Go ever added generics. Obviously that didn't work and now these people have lost any form of power they thought they have. But these are very public people I won't name here. > Nobody who mattered said that Go didn't need generics. Well I guess these people clearly don't matter now, since they are still on the mailing list despite their threats... > It was always explicitly on the table. No it wasn't, Rob Pike himself was clearly not interested in adding generics and the effort truly began when Pike left the Go team. Let's not try to rewrite history.
- randomdata 4y ago
  > these were a bunch of well known gatekeepers in the main go mailing list Celebrity status doesn't make someone's comments any less random. > Let's not try to rewrite history. No need to rewrite anything. It was written right on golang.org for most, if not all, of Go's public life. Though obviously no longer relevant these days. The various generics proposals (eight of them, if I recall correctly) were also published publicly.