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The Gopher narrative timeline as I remember it was: 1. Generics are bloated and don't allow us to have a single-pass compiler, which we need. 2. You don't nee

The Gopher narrative timeline as I remember it was: 1. Generics are bloated and don't allow us to have a single-pass compiler, which we need. 2. You don't need generics because go generate covers all the cases that generics cover (please ignore that this is a second pass). 3. Go has generics!

throwaway2037 3y ago
Yeah, for years C++ said they didn't need sealed/final classes. Then they finally added it. Similar "re-editing" of history was done. When new C++ standard libraries are written, there is now active, public effort to review what exists in other languages. Finally.
doctor_eval 3y ago
My recollection of the timeline is a bit different: 1. The current proposals for generics are bloated and don't fit properly with our vision for Go. 2. We will do heaps and heaps of work over many years until we get something we like. 3. Go has generics! Also, AFAIK Go is not a single-pass compiler, at least not in the way I learned about compilers.
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  > 1. The current proposals for generics are bloated and don't fit properly with our vision for Go. > 2. We will do heaps and heaps of work over many years until we get something we like. I suppose repeatedly suffering the pain of not having generics until you finally get enough of your community to admit generics aren't just bloat can be described as "heaps and heaps of work". ;) I'd love to hear what meaningful differences you think exist between early proposals for Go generics, and later proposals for Go generics. Or Go generics and generics which had existed in other languages for decades, for that matter. The result of this silly delay will be felt basically forever, because millions of lines of go were written with error codes, which could have been much-less error-prone option types. I'm not sure it would even be a good idea to start using option types at this point because it would create such inconsistencies in codebases. > Also, AFAIK Go is not a single-pass compiler, at least not in the way I learned about compilers. Correct! But it was single pass and that was very important because multiple passes were bloat. But multiple passes aren't bloat any more, because now Go has multiple passes and Go doesn't have the bloat of other languages. See how that works? "The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eurasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia."
  - 2h 3y ago
    > option types Go couldn't have Option before, and it cant have option now. Option is not only generic, but its also an Enum, which Go still doesn't have: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/option/enum.Option.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/option/enum.Option.html so its not really clear what you mean by this.
    - alex_lav 3y ago
      Option is an enum _in Rust_. This is not universally true (or even common).
    - kerkeslager 3y ago
      https://gprivate.com/651x2 https://gprivate.com/651x2
  - doctor_eval 3y ago
    Quoting 1984 when discussing the history of a programming language really detracts from any point you’re trying to make. It’s not like we’ve seen some massive regression in compiler performance. Circumstances changed, and the Go developers changed their minds. What would you do?
    - kerkeslager 3y ago
      > It’s not like we’ve seen some massive regression in compiler performance. Circumstances changed, and the Go developers changed their minds. What would you do? 1. Yes, we didn't see a massive regression in compiler performance. Which begs the question why they didn't benchmark the options to see that might be the case. 2. Circumstances didn't change. The options for how to implement generics are roughly now what they were in 2009. What we need from languages in Go's sphere, is roughly the same as well. 3. What would I have done? a) Benchmark before making claims about speed. b) Assess features from other languages to see what works and what hasn't (literally nothing about the problems with lacking generics was unforseeable--I was talking about them early on and I'm not some sort of prophet). c) Admit rejecting generics was a mistake instead of pretending they were part of the plan all along.

throwaway2037 3y ago

Yeah, for years C++ said they didn't need sealed/final classes. Then they finally added it. Similar "re-editing" of history was done. When new C++ standard libraries are written, there is now active, public effort to review what exists in other languages. Finally.

doctor_eval 3y ago

My recollection of the timeline is a bit different: 1. The current proposals for generics are bloated and don't fit properly with our vision for Go. 2. We will do heaps and heaps of work over many years until we get something we like. 3. Go has generics! Also, AFAIK Go is not a single-pass compiler, at least not in the way I learned about compilers.

kerkeslager 3y ago
> 1. The current proposals for generics are bloated and don't fit properly with our vision for Go. > 2. We will do heaps and heaps of work over many years until we get something we like. I suppose repeatedly suffering the pain of not having generics until you finally get enough of your community to admit generics aren't just bloat can be described as "heaps and heaps of work". ;) I'd love to hear what meaningful differences you think exist between early proposals for Go generics, and later proposals for Go generics. Or Go generics and generics which had existed in other languages for decades, for that matter. The result of this silly delay will be felt basically forever, because millions of lines of go were written with error codes, which could have been much-less error-prone option types. I'm not sure it would even be a good idea to start using option types at this point because it would create such inconsistencies in codebases. > Also, AFAIK Go is not a single-pass compiler, at least not in the way I learned about compilers. Correct! But it was single pass and that was very important because multiple passes were bloat. But multiple passes aren't bloat any more, because now Go has multiple passes and Go doesn't have the bloat of other languages. See how that works? "The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eurasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia."
- 2h 3y ago
  > option types Go couldn't have Option before, and it cant have option now. Option is not only generic, but its also an Enum, which Go still doesn't have: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/option/enum.Option.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/option/enum.Option.html so its not really clear what you mean by this.
  - alex_lav 3y ago
    Option is an enum _in Rust_. This is not universally true (or even common).
  - kerkeslager 3y ago
    https://gprivate.com/651x2 https://gprivate.com/651x2
- doctor_eval 3y ago
  Quoting 1984 when discussing the history of a programming language really detracts from any point you’re trying to make. It’s not like we’ve seen some massive regression in compiler performance. Circumstances changed, and the Go developers changed their minds. What would you do?
  - kerkeslager 3y ago
    > It’s not like we’ve seen some massive regression in compiler performance. Circumstances changed, and the Go developers changed their minds. What would you do? 1. Yes, we didn't see a massive regression in compiler performance. Which begs the question why they didn't benchmark the options to see that might be the case. 2. Circumstances didn't change. The options for how to implement generics are roughly now what they were in 2009. What we need from languages in Go's sphere, is roughly the same as well. 3. What would I have done? a) Benchmark before making claims about speed. b) Assess features from other languages to see what works and what hasn't (literally nothing about the problems with lacking generics was unforseeable--I was talking about them early on and I'm not some sort of prophet). c) Admit rejecting generics was a mistake instead of pretending they were part of the plan all along.