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When comparing how Go changes with how C++ changes, one gets renewed appreciation for how good of a job the C++ designers are doing. The more Go evolves, the m

When comparing how Go changes with how C++ changes, one gets renewed appreciation for how good of a job the C++ designers are doing. The more Go evolves, the more clear it gets that it has a very poorly designed foundation. I say that as someone who's coded and reviewed a lot of Go code. Maybe they should not have skipped 40 years of language theory when first creating it. It wasn't obvious in the beginning, but now...

vsnf 4y ago
> It wasn't obvious in the beginning, but now... Was it not obvious at the beginning that this was a bad idea? What was the state of programming languages where consciously tossing out progress was considered not on, its face, insane?
- knorker 4y ago
  Depends where you were going. What I mean is that you can start a small language with shaky fundamentals, but when you try to grow it to take over it becomes a problem. But yes, if the goal was to grow then it's a bad place to start from.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  In a sense this is a tradition that the Go authors already followed once when designing C. "Although we entertained occasional thoughts about implementing one of the major languages of the time like Fortran, PL/I, or Algol 68, such a project seemed hopelessly large for our resources: much simpler and smaller tools were called for. All these languages influenced our work, but it was more fun to do things on our own. " -- https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html
twsted 4y ago
> When comparing how Go changes with how C++ changes, one gets renewed appreciation for how good of a job the C++ designers are doing. We must live in a different world...
- insanitybit 4y ago
  I get where you're coming from but consider that C++ has added an obscene number of features and it somehow all works. You can say "that's bad that they added tons of features" and I'll agree with you, but the fact that they've been able to do so is impressive and speaks to a powerful design process.
- knorker 4y ago
  You may not like the language, but it's managed to grow with a consistent story. Yes, there have been some missteps, like auto_ptr and vector<bool>, but it does work together. At worst you have to write small adapters because there's no equivalent of smatch for string_view, etc... But compare this to Go, where contexts, error wrapping, generics, uh... error wrapping again (this multierror thing), horrible conditional build hacks, etc... C++ is a big and complex language. But it's consistent. Go is a small simple language with lots of ill-fitting extensions added as core language features and standard library bolted all around it. In other words: any language can be critiqued, and it often helps by showing that a deficiency is not unavoidable, by showing how another language has avoided it.
  - twsted 4y ago
    I'm saying this after 20 years using C++, from AT&T CFront onwards, all the GotW, years of Boost posts, every Modern, Effective and Exceptional book read. I've loved C++, but now it is complex even with my experience.
    - knorker 4y ago
      Again, I'm not saying C++ is not complex. I'm saying the complex pieces fit. And that Go has the problem that the pieces don't fit together. (and that this is because it has a bad foundation) I have more than 20 years of C++ experience. Maybe more than 25. I'm surprised you used CFront 20 years ago. Is this like how in my head the beginning of the Unix epoch was "about 30 years ago" when actually it's almost 53?
      - 4y ago

vsnf 4y ago

> It wasn't obvious in the beginning, but now... Was it not obvious at the beginning that this was a bad idea? What was the state of programming languages where consciously tossing out progress was considered not on, its face, insane?

knorker 4y ago
Depends where you were going. What I mean is that you can start a small language with shaky fundamentals, but when you try to grow it to take over it becomes a problem. But yes, if the goal was to grow then it's a bad place to start from.
pjmlp 4y ago
In a sense this is a tradition that the Go authors already followed once when designing C. "Although we entertained occasional thoughts about implementing one of the major languages of the time like Fortran, PL/I, or Algol 68, such a project seemed hopelessly large for our resources: much simpler and smaller tools were called for. All these languages influenced our work, but it was more fun to do things on our own. " -- https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html

twsted 4y ago

> When comparing how Go changes with how C++ changes, one gets renewed appreciation for how good of a job the C++ designers are doing. We must live in a different world...

insanitybit 4y ago
I get where you're coming from but consider that C++ has added an obscene number of features and it somehow all works. You can say "that's bad that they added tons of features" and I'll agree with you, but the fact that they've been able to do so is impressive and speaks to a powerful design process.
knorker 4y ago
You may not like the language, but it's managed to grow with a consistent story. Yes, there have been some missteps, like auto_ptr and vector<bool>, but it does work together. At worst you have to write small adapters because there's no equivalent of smatch for string_view, etc... But compare this to Go, where contexts, error wrapping, generics, uh... error wrapping again (this multierror thing), horrible conditional build hacks, etc... C++ is a big and complex language. But it's consistent. Go is a small simple language with lots of ill-fitting extensions added as core language features and standard library bolted all around it. In other words: any language can be critiqued, and it often helps by showing that a deficiency is not unavoidable, by showing how another language has avoided it.
- twsted 4y ago
  I'm saying this after 20 years using C++, from AT&T CFront onwards, all the GotW, years of Boost posts, every Modern, Effective and Exceptional book read. I've loved C++, but now it is complex even with my experience.
  - knorker 4y ago
    Again, I'm not saying C++ is not complex. I'm saying the complex pieces fit. And that Go has the problem that the pieces don't fit together. (and that this is because it has a bad foundation) I have more than 20 years of C++ experience. Maybe more than 25. I'm surprised you used CFront 20 years ago. Is this like how in my head the beginning of the Unix epoch was "about 30 years ago" when actually it's almost 53?
    - 4y ago