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> Much of Mozilla's revenue comes from Google, of course. This couldn't be because Rust was, and is, outshining Google's GoLang? Surely not? I don’t understand

> Much of Mozilla's revenue comes from Google, of course. This couldn't be because Rust was, and is, outshining Google's GoLang? Surely not? I don’t understand this assertion, and definitely not the comparison between Rust and GoLang, which exist for entirely different purposes (systems programming versus cloud servers)

justinclift 3y ago
Yeah. Spelling the name of the language wrongly is also a pretty clear indication the author isn't familiar with Go. And doesn't grok it gets used for very different stuff to Rust. So their suggestion this was why Servo was dropped seems extremely bizarre.
- seanhunter 3y ago
  Also things like computer language wars just don't factor into executives' thinking at all when they make big strategic decisions except in cases where it's a proxy for market capture, like dotnet where the language (C# mostly) was initially really about locking users into a delivery ecosystem on Microsoft. If you added up everyone in the boardroom of google and mozilla you would find less than 0.01 millifucks given about go vs rust in total. You might as well ask Mark Zuckerberg about tabs vs spaces.
- didntcheck 3y ago
  To be fair it's not just this author. For some reason people are absolutely obsessed with comparing Rust and Go, whereas more applicable comparisons would respectively be Zig or D, and a JVM language or C#
angra_mainyu 3y ago
In practice they overlap a lot. I don't particularly understand why people say this. I've worked doing systems programming a lot (i.e: many many syscalls) and Go does this just fine. Unless you're working on some kind of hard real time system, I can't see why you would discard Go.
- arp242 3y ago
  Go was very much intended as a systems programming language. It's literally in the initial announcement[1]: "Go is a great language for systems programming with support for multi-processing, a fresh and lightweight take on object-oriented design, plus some cool features like true closures and reflection." The whole cloud bonanza came later. A lot of Go programmers I know also don't really like it (myself included). [1]: https://opensource.googleblog.com/2009/11/hey-ho-lets-go.html https://opensource.googleblog.com/2009/11/hey-ho-lets-go.htm...
  - oaiey 3y ago
    But we agree that Rust is purposeful closer to C and Go is purposeful closer to Java / C#? Systems can surely be build by all of them. My memory of the origins of Go was in building services but not low level drivers or renderers.
    - neonsunset 3y ago
      When going systems programming, the differences between Java and C# become significant, specifically, Java lacks zero/low-cost interop, ability to work with C structs directly and does not allow you to directly port unsafe pointers-based code which you can do with C# and Rust. In this regard, C# is much closer to C++ and Rust with GC attached on top and certain opinionated choices rather than being a high level language completely abstracted away via VM.
      - oaiey 3y ago
        Indeed true. One of the unique and underrated strengths of C#. But "System Programming" is not exactly operating system or fundamental service writing but much more often your stock ticker broker or WhatsApp backend. The terminology is very misleading IMHO.
    - arp242 3y ago
      "Systems programming" is an ill-defined term and different people seem to mean different things with it. I think the thing you're getting at is that Go has a GC and Rust doesn't. That's indeed a meaningful difference with lots of implications, both good and bad for both, which doesn't mean that Go is unsuitable for all systems programming. Running programs with Java and C# (OpenJDK and Mono at least) is nothing like running a Go (or Rust) programs. You can't distinguish between a Go or Rust binary at a glance, but you can spot a Java or C# program easily. In many ways Go is significantly more similar to C than Rust is, and in other ways Rust is more similar.
klabb3 3y ago
Not to mention there’s no business competition between free languages. Google, like all other major corps, are looking at Rust and want it to succeed. It is not “threatening” Go in any way (whatever that means – it’s not like Google is dependent on outside contributions for Go).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
bryancoxwell 3y ago
There’s a lot going on in the quoted text that immediately signaled to me the rest of the article wouldn’t be worth reading.
- lproven 3y ago
  I wrote the article. It will not surprise you that I think you're dead wrong. Notably you have failed to register that what I am doing in that paragraph is attempting (possibly badly) to rebut this surprisingly widespread allegation.

justinclift 3y ago

Yeah. Spelling the name of the language wrongly is also a pretty clear indication the author isn't familiar with Go. And doesn't grok it gets used for very different stuff to Rust. So their suggestion this was why Servo was dropped seems extremely bizarre.

seanhunter 3y ago
Also things like computer language wars just don't factor into executives' thinking at all when they make big strategic decisions except in cases where it's a proxy for market capture, like dotnet where the language (C# mostly) was initially really about locking users into a delivery ecosystem on Microsoft. If you added up everyone in the boardroom of google and mozilla you would find less than 0.01 millifucks given about go vs rust in total. You might as well ask Mark Zuckerberg about tabs vs spaces.
didntcheck 3y ago
To be fair it's not just this author. For some reason people are absolutely obsessed with comparing Rust and Go, whereas more applicable comparisons would respectively be Zig or D, and a JVM language or C#

angra_mainyu 3y ago

In practice they overlap a lot. I don't particularly understand why people say this. I've worked doing systems programming a lot (i.e: many many syscalls) and Go does this just fine. Unless you're working on some kind of hard real time system, I can't see why you would discard Go.

arp242 3y ago
Go was very much intended as a systems programming language. It's literally in the initial announcement[1]: "Go is a great language for systems programming with support for multi-processing, a fresh and lightweight take on object-oriented design, plus some cool features like true closures and reflection." The whole cloud bonanza came later. A lot of Go programmers I know also don't really like it (myself included). [1]: https://opensource.googleblog.com/2009/11/hey-ho-lets-go.html https://opensource.googleblog.com/2009/11/hey-ho-lets-go.htm...
- oaiey 3y ago
  But we agree that Rust is purposeful closer to C and Go is purposeful closer to Java / C#? Systems can surely be build by all of them. My memory of the origins of Go was in building services but not low level drivers or renderers.
  - neonsunset 3y ago
    When going systems programming, the differences between Java and C# become significant, specifically, Java lacks zero/low-cost interop, ability to work with C structs directly and does not allow you to directly port unsafe pointers-based code which you can do with C# and Rust. In this regard, C# is much closer to C++ and Rust with GC attached on top and certain opinionated choices rather than being a high level language completely abstracted away via VM.
    - oaiey 3y ago
      Indeed true. One of the unique and underrated strengths of C#. But "System Programming" is not exactly operating system or fundamental service writing but much more often your stock ticker broker or WhatsApp backend. The terminology is very misleading IMHO.
  - arp242 3y ago
    "Systems programming" is an ill-defined term and different people seem to mean different things with it. I think the thing you're getting at is that Go has a GC and Rust doesn't. That's indeed a meaningful difference with lots of implications, both good and bad for both, which doesn't mean that Go is unsuitable for all systems programming. Running programs with Java and C# (OpenJDK and Mono at least) is nothing like running a Go (or Rust) programs. You can't distinguish between a Go or Rust binary at a glance, but you can spot a Java or C# program easily. In many ways Go is significantly more similar to C than Rust is, and in other ways Rust is more similar.

klabb3 3y ago

Not to mention there’s no business competition between free languages. Google, like all other major corps, are looking at Rust and want it to succeed. It is not “threatening” Go in any way (whatever that means – it’s not like Google is dependent on outside contributions for Go).

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

bryancoxwell 3y ago

There’s a lot going on in the quoted text that immediately signaled to me the rest of the article wouldn’t be worth reading.

lproven 3y ago
I wrote the article. It will not surprise you that I think you're dead wrong. Notably you have failed to register that what I am doing in that paragraph is attempting (possibly badly) to rebut this surprisingly widespread allegation.