6 ms·

Yet somehow it's one of the most productive and successful languages to have appeared in the last 20 years.

by calini 3y ago

Capricorn2481 3y ago
That sounds anecdotal. There's not really evidence of it being more productive than anything else
codr7 3y ago
I don't find it weird at all that simpler languages are more popular/successful. They're easier to pick up and support the idea of plug and play programmers that is very popular among managers. Productive as a consequence of the above, maybe; in that more code is written in Go; but certainly not as a quality of the language. And there's numbness and denial involved. I've been writing Go full time for about a year now at work. Every time I use another language I'm reminded of how much time and energy I'm wasting.
- mbernstein 3y ago
  It's not even that it's popular among managers to move people around all the time. That's an awful framework for getting great work done. People change jobs and you need to choose a language you can either easily hire for or train someone up in. Go fits the second requirement very well, and as more people learn it, starts hitting on the first. I introduced Go at two different companies to great success not because it's my favorite language (I would much prefer Rust, Haskell, Clojure, etc) but in reality, in my role as a leader of a tech org, hiring smart people and getting giving them the means to be productive as soon as possible for however long they want to work with us is key.
  - louthy 3y ago
    Is being productive immediately better than a constant loss of productivity due to manual boilerplate writing? It seems to me to be the wrong trade
    - mbernstein 3y ago
      Depends on a number of factors. I think GitHub copilot is reducing that trade off a bit more. If the average dev stays somewhere for 2.5 years (our average is quite a bit higher because I tend to think we’re good place to work) - how long are you willing to invest in them learning the new tech (and on top of the, business logic/etc)? The lower the investment number the less you’re willing to dive into rust sans specific technical reasons (which go and elixir would easily meet). Separately, I don’t buy the notion that a language that has a bit more boilerplate is less productive than one with virtually none.
      - codr7 3y ago
        This is all from a managers perspective, which I suspect is the main reason we disagree. From a coders perspective, using sub-optimal tools and churning out boilerplate day in and day out makes the difference between keeping a job and looking elsewhere. Which turns it into a managers problem, because if your developers are not happy, you won't be either in the long run.
- TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
  > I don't find it weird at all that simpler languages are more popular/successful. There are diminishing returns on programming features I guess. At a certain level of complexity the difficulty in learning the feature will kill adoption despite the usefulness of the feature - e.g. monads; after months I think I sort of get it ... sort of. > Every time I use another language I'm reminded of how much time and energy I'm wasting. Wasting writing Go or wasting writing in the other language? Sorry, just clarifying. I really can't tell which you meant.
  - codr7 3y ago
    Wasting writing Go, definitely. Manual loop implementations of basic functional concepts, manual error propagation, finding ways around arbitrary limitations in the name of simplicity, the list goes on and on.
    - bootsmann 3y ago
      Yeah agreed, especially on the error propagation part. Its especially egregious when trying to send results through channels, I just wish I had the Result enum from rust every time.
JackMorgan 3y ago
I would argue that title belongs to Typescript. Every client I talk to wants help getting started with it.
- bigfishrunning 3y ago
  If the clients need that much help getting started, is it really that productive?
  - JackMorgan 3y ago
    One would think it is a false equivalency to compare the initial installation and training efforts with the eventual, enduring gains in productivity.
pjmlp 3y ago
Productive, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. JavaScript, PHP and C are also widely successful, despite their design flaws. Technical excellence doesn't driver adoption, unfortunely.
- jstimpfle 3y ago
  Seems like they weren't bad enough to prevent success, plus what were the alternatives? In Javascript's case, maybe Python since it has quite a similar runtime model. But was Python of fhe 2000's really better suited than Javascript at the time? And hasn't Javascript caught up considerably? Same for PHP?
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    The alternatives never had an opportunity, given that free beer OS with source code (C), only implementatation available (JavaScript), only language available on cheap ISP hosting without additional infrastructure costs (PHP), closed the door to them.
    - jstimpfle 3y ago
      Plenty of opportunities. The alternatives could just have created a mod_php equivalent. I can't imagine ISPs "closing the doors" to newcomer languages, the market should have been competitive enough to allow for penetration. The thing is that productivity of a language depends on many factors, including many softer ones that are typically forgotten or discounted by language geeks. It also depends on the target audience. In some important ways, PHP was/is brilliant. A technically brilliant language should be able to recognize the adoption driver mechanisms and build the necessary infrastructure. The point of a language is not (only) to build a theoretically sound framework, but to be an ergonomic vehicle for expression of ideas.

Yet somehow it's one of the most productive and successful languages to have appeared in the last 20 years.

by calini 3y ago

Yet somehow it's one of the most productive and successful languages to have appeared in the last 20 years.

Capricorn2481 3y ago

That sounds anecdotal. There's not really evidence of it being more productive than anything else

codr7 3y ago

I don't find it weird at all that simpler languages are more popular/successful. They're easier to pick up and support the idea of plug and play programmers that is very popular among managers. Productive as a consequence of the above, maybe; in that more code is written in Go; but certainly not as a quality of the language. And there's numbness and denial involved. I've been writing Go full time for about a year now at work. Every time I use another language I'm reminded of how much time and energy I'm wasting.

mbernstein 3y ago
It's not even that it's popular among managers to move people around all the time. That's an awful framework for getting great work done. People change jobs and you need to choose a language you can either easily hire for or train someone up in. Go fits the second requirement very well, and as more people learn it, starts hitting on the first. I introduced Go at two different companies to great success not because it's my favorite language (I would much prefer Rust, Haskell, Clojure, etc) but in reality, in my role as a leader of a tech org, hiring smart people and getting giving them the means to be productive as soon as possible for however long they want to work with us is key.
- louthy 3y ago
  Is being productive immediately better than a constant loss of productivity due to manual boilerplate writing? It seems to me to be the wrong trade
  - mbernstein 3y ago
    Depends on a number of factors. I think GitHub copilot is reducing that trade off a bit more. If the average dev stays somewhere for 2.5 years (our average is quite a bit higher because I tend to think we’re good place to work) - how long are you willing to invest in them learning the new tech (and on top of the, business logic/etc)? The lower the investment number the less you’re willing to dive into rust sans specific technical reasons (which go and elixir would easily meet). Separately, I don’t buy the notion that a language that has a bit more boilerplate is less productive than one with virtually none.
    - codr7 3y ago
      This is all from a managers perspective, which I suspect is the main reason we disagree. From a coders perspective, using sub-optimal tools and churning out boilerplate day in and day out makes the difference between keeping a job and looking elsewhere. Which turns it into a managers problem, because if your developers are not happy, you won't be either in the long run.
TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
> I don't find it weird at all that simpler languages are more popular/successful. There are diminishing returns on programming features I guess. At a certain level of complexity the difficulty in learning the feature will kill adoption despite the usefulness of the feature - e.g. monads; after months I think I sort of get it ... sort of. > Every time I use another language I'm reminded of how much time and energy I'm wasting. Wasting writing Go or wasting writing in the other language? Sorry, just clarifying. I really can't tell which you meant.
- codr7 3y ago
  Wasting writing Go, definitely. Manual loop implementations of basic functional concepts, manual error propagation, finding ways around arbitrary limitations in the name of simplicity, the list goes on and on.
  - bootsmann 3y ago
    Yeah agreed, especially on the error propagation part. Its especially egregious when trying to send results through channels, I just wish I had the Result enum from rust every time.

JackMorgan 3y ago

I would argue that title belongs to Typescript. Every client I talk to wants help getting started with it.

bigfishrunning 3y ago
If the clients need that much help getting started, is it really that productive?
- JackMorgan 3y ago
  One would think it is a false equivalency to compare the initial installation and training efforts with the eventual, enduring gains in productivity.

pjmlp 3y ago

Productive, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. JavaScript, PHP and C are also widely successful, despite their design flaws. Technical excellence doesn't driver adoption, unfortunely.

jstimpfle 3y ago
Seems like they weren't bad enough to prevent success, plus what were the alternatives? In Javascript's case, maybe Python since it has quite a similar runtime model. But was Python of fhe 2000's really better suited than Javascript at the time? And hasn't Javascript caught up considerably? Same for PHP?
- pjmlp 3y ago
  The alternatives never had an opportunity, given that free beer OS with source code (C), only implementatation available (JavaScript), only language available on cheap ISP hosting without additional infrastructure costs (PHP), closed the door to them.
  - jstimpfle 3y ago
    Plenty of opportunities. The alternatives could just have created a mod_php equivalent. I can't imagine ISPs "closing the doors" to newcomer languages, the market should have been competitive enough to allow for penetration. The thing is that productivity of a language depends on many factors, including many softer ones that are typically forgotten or discounted by language geeks. It also depends on the target audience. In some important ways, PHP was/is brilliant. A technically brilliant language should be able to recognize the adoption driver mechanisms and build the necessary infrastructure. The point of a language is not (only) to build a theoretically sound framework, but to be an ergonomic vehicle for expression of ideas.