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What I do not understand is why on every article about Go someone needs to extol their dislike of Go. If you don't understand its appeal, then either you should

by rob74 4y ago

What I do not understand is why on every article about Go someone needs to extol their dislike of Go. If you don't understand its appeal, then either you should give it a (serious) try and see if you like it, or if you are unable to bring yourself to do that, just use those better (according to your opinion) languages.

pjmlp 4y ago
Unfortunely that isn't always a choice that we can influence, project => language, and in some cases that implies using a language that we dislike, regardless of how we feel about it. One can go job hoping as alternative, but then good luck jumping jobs everytime one has to deal with stuff we dislike.
- jackosdev 4y ago
  I hopped jobs to go from using Go to Rust, I was sad and bored, now I'm happy and energized. Always going to be things you dislike for sure, but life's to short to be using a language that's making you miserable.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Which is true, assuming the job market is great on the area, which even on IT isn't the case. Thankfully I seldom have to deal with Go anyway.
- rob74 4y ago
  True, but can you really work day by day in a language and still not understand its appeal? I mean, not like it, but at least understand why others might choose to use it? And, if you really can't bring yourself to see the positive sides of a language you have to use (and any mainstream language has to have positive sides, otherwise it wouldn't be mainstream), maybe it's really time to consider switching jobs...
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    I see Go's appeal as a better C for userspace code, and the language is quite nice had it been released during the days Oberon and Limbo mattered in the mid-1990's. As post 2000 language, its design isn't that appealing. The language would have been as mainstream as Oberon and Limbo were, if the authors weren't working at Google.
  - shakow 4y ago
    > True, but can you really work day by day in a language and still not understand its appeal? Yes. I have been working with Go for close to a year now, and I still don't get why we use it, if not for the inertia of times past – and I still don't get why it was chosen in the first place. If we wanted a fast, down to the metal language, Rust would IMHO be better. If we preferred a higher-level language with a Gc, Java/Kotlin/C# would be, IMHO, much better. And both paths offer the same level of tooling, so it's still a mystery to me.
    - konart 4y ago
      >If we preferred a higher-level language with a Gc, Java/Kotlin/C# would be, IMHO, much better. Writing code in Java\Kotlin requires quite some investment into the language and tooling (at least that's my Java impression). With Go - you can start getting the job done from day one most of the time. Some parts of Go may be harder than the others, even challenging maybe, but not as hard as Java. Lack of OOP (at least in Java's traditional scence) also helps quite a lot (but that depends on project of course)
      - shakow 4y ago
        To be honest, I think that go packaging is ghastly (just accessing dependencies in private repos requires changing global git settings, which is an abomination), but I can see how Java can be very heavy on that. However, I would not weight too much the time-to-first-makefile of a language if a project is supposed to live for years.
        konart 4y ago
- ilyt 4y ago
  Huh, the one reason that I'd wish most languages would die and we picked like... 5 is that seemingly every time I hit a project I'd want to hack upon it's in language I don't know...
lordgroff 4y ago
It's like a hackernews meme at this point, complete with "I used Go before and my life was a meaningless void and then Rust came into my life and now I see the light." It's all so predictable and boring and derails nearly every Go thread.
- dm319 4y ago
  The hackernews meme a few years ago was about how Go could do no wrong, and any perceived deficiencies was it due to being opinionated. Maybe this is a backlash?
  - kelipso 4y ago
    The concept of "opinionated" itself is a meme.
ilyt 4y ago
Hell, just scroll down in this thread to see the clowns. Maybe envy that their favourite toy/niche language didn't get popular instead ? Like, there is plenty of flaws clear to see in Go but it does some jobs well and that's all that's needed to be useful language.

by rob74 4y ago

pjmlp 4y ago

Unfortunely that isn't always a choice that we can influence, project => language, and in some cases that implies using a language that we dislike, regardless of how we feel about it. One can go job hoping as alternative, but then good luck jumping jobs everytime one has to deal with stuff we dislike.

jackosdev 4y ago
I hopped jobs to go from using Go to Rust, I was sad and bored, now I'm happy and energized. Always going to be things you dislike for sure, but life's to short to be using a language that's making you miserable.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Which is true, assuming the job market is great on the area, which even on IT isn't the case. Thankfully I seldom have to deal with Go anyway.
rob74 4y ago
True, but can you really work day by day in a language and still not understand its appeal? I mean, not like it, but at least understand why others might choose to use it? And, if you really can't bring yourself to see the positive sides of a language you have to use (and any mainstream language has to have positive sides, otherwise it wouldn't be mainstream), maybe it's really time to consider switching jobs...
- pjmlp 4y ago
  I see Go's appeal as a better C for userspace code, and the language is quite nice had it been released during the days Oberon and Limbo mattered in the mid-1990's. As post 2000 language, its design isn't that appealing. The language would have been as mainstream as Oberon and Limbo were, if the authors weren't working at Google.
- shakow 4y ago
  > True, but can you really work day by day in a language and still not understand its appeal? Yes. I have been working with Go for close to a year now, and I still don't get why we use it, if not for the inertia of times past – and I still don't get why it was chosen in the first place. If we wanted a fast, down to the metal language, Rust would IMHO be better. If we preferred a higher-level language with a Gc, Java/Kotlin/C# would be, IMHO, much better. And both paths offer the same level of tooling, so it's still a mystery to me.
  - konart 4y ago
    >If we preferred a higher-level language with a Gc, Java/Kotlin/C# would be, IMHO, much better. Writing code in Java\Kotlin requires quite some investment into the language and tooling (at least that's my Java impression). With Go - you can start getting the job done from day one most of the time. Some parts of Go may be harder than the others, even challenging maybe, but not as hard as Java. Lack of OOP (at least in Java's traditional scence) also helps quite a lot (but that depends on project of course)
    - shakow 4y ago
      To be honest, I think that go packaging is ghastly (just accessing dependencies in private repos requires changing global git settings, which is an abomination), but I can see how Java can be very heavy on that. However, I would not weight too much the time-to-first-makefile of a language if a project is supposed to live for years.
      - konart 4y ago
ilyt 4y ago
Huh, the one reason that I'd wish most languages would die and we picked like... 5 is that seemingly every time I hit a project I'd want to hack upon it's in language I don't know...

lordgroff 4y ago

It's like a hackernews meme at this point, complete with "I used Go before and my life was a meaningless void and then Rust came into my life and now I see the light." It's all so predictable and boring and derails nearly every Go thread.

dm319 4y ago
The hackernews meme a few years ago was about how Go could do no wrong, and any perceived deficiencies was it due to being opinionated. Maybe this is a backlash?
- kelipso 4y ago
  The concept of "opinionated" itself is a meme.

ilyt 4y ago

Hell, just scroll down in this thread to see the clowns. Maybe envy that their favourite toy/niche language didn't get popular instead ? Like, there is plenty of flaws clear to see in Go but it does some jobs well and that's all that's needed to be useful language.