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Without any hesitation. Google won't kill Go given how much they use it internally. Even if they do, someone else will take over. Additional benefit of choosing

Without any hesitation. Google won't kill Go given how much they use it internally. Even if they do, someone else will take over. Additional benefit of choosing Go over Python is lack of breaking changes in minor releases.

crabbone 3y ago
What if Google goes under? What if the next big lawsuit against Google makes it disown portions of its business, and they say goodby to Go as a result? (That actually happened to IBM for example, at the time they were virtually the sole provider of all software services in the world -- that's more or less why and how we have software industry today). What makes you so convinced "someone" will take over? Is there anyone who offered themselves in such capacity? I've heard a lot of people making similar bold claims about Python 2.X -- sure, someone will step in and maintain Python 2.X indefinitely... Well, no one did.
- betaby 3y ago
  > What if Google goes under? What if Sun goes under? Oh, wait... > and they say goodby to Go as a result? and they say goodbye to Java as a result? > and maintain Python 2.X indefinitely.. Someone said that? Anyway 20 years of 2.x branch is pretty impressive.
  - crabbone 3y ago
    You took just one example. And, although there weren't many cases of proprietary languages or almost-proprietary languages dying in recent years, there are, of course, examples of them dying. You just picked one where this didn't happen... So, ActionScript would be one example. Dylan would be another. There are probably many more of lesser known proprietary languages that died never making the news. And, looping back to the original subject: parent believes there's no danger in using an almost-proprietary language, where the evidence is that owners of proprietary languages do kill them every now and then. Do they do it all the time? -- well, no, but I didn't claim anything like that... --- As to your observation about Python 2.X -- you didn't understand in what context the argument was made. C, or any other language with a standard is warranted the lifetime that's as long as humanity is able to read and understand the standard as well as implementing it. So, 20 years will be essentially insignificant compared to the longevity of a language with a published standard. Please don't confuse this to me advocating for every language needing a standard. Writing one severely restricts what a language can offer, while at the same time, immortalizing potentially harmful features. Going back to see, we wish today that all the str* stuff would be gone, or stuff like atoi()... but that's not an option anymore, because this stuff made it into the standard. Languages w/o one can shed their skin and remove bad decisions. But, this same feature makes them less viable for long-term projects.
- usrbinbash 3y ago
  > What if Google goes under? Then Go is still an Open Source Project with massive community support, that everyoen is free to form and extend or maintain by himself. > What makes you so convinced "someone" will take over? Because tens of thousands of projects depend on the language? Because the people who developed go don't just vanish if Google suddenly did? Because OSS has a long history of maintenance changing hands? > sure, someone will step in and maintain Python 2.X indefinitely... Well, no one did. There is a simple reason for that: Py2 was obsoleted by it's successor, Py3. There is simply no point in maintaining an obsolete language, especially if it has a direct successor, that is both similar, and an improvement in every single way. And even so, Python 2.7 was still supported for almost a decade after it's release.
cpuguy83 3y ago
Go has breaking changes frequently.
- saturn_vk 3y ago
  Ok, could you name 10?
  - cpuguy83 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - usrbinbash 3y ago
      > What a terrible comment. How is asking for examples for a statement a "terrible comment"? >go is changing the loop semantics to scope loop variables to the loop. Now, I like and agree with this change, but it is a breaking change. Please explain what exactly that change breaks. > Behavior changes that are only apparent at runtime is where go makes breaking changes. Such as? And yes, I am asking for examples. Because I have personally compiled and run code that was written in Go 1.8, with a modern compiler. And the only change I saw so far, is better performance.
      - cpuguy83 3y ago
        > How is asking for examples for a statement a "terrible comment"? Demanding 10 examples is a terrible comment. It communicates hostility and disbelief rather than curiosity. > Please explain what exactly that change breaks. https://github.com/golang/go/issues/60078 https://github.com/golang/go/issues/60078 is where this is discussed. Again, I _agree_ with this change, but I'm pointing out that it is a breaking change. rsc points out in the proposal that it is a breaking change. > Such as? And yes, I am asking for examples. Because I have personally compiled and run code that was written in Go 1.8, with a modern compiler. And the only change I saw so far, is better performance. I gave multiple examples already. If you are truly interested I'm sure you can find more either in the go issue tracker or on google.

crabbone 3y ago

What if Google goes under? What if the next big lawsuit against Google makes it disown portions of its business, and they say goodby to Go as a result? (That actually happened to IBM for example, at the time they were virtually the sole provider of all software services in the world -- that's more or less why and how we have software industry today). What makes you so convinced "someone" will take over? Is there anyone who offered themselves in such capacity? I've heard a lot of people making similar bold claims about Python 2.X -- sure, someone will step in and maintain Python 2.X indefinitely... Well, no one did.

betaby 3y ago
> What if Google goes under? What if Sun goes under? Oh, wait... > and they say goodby to Go as a result? and they say goodbye to Java as a result? > and maintain Python 2.X indefinitely.. Someone said that? Anyway 20 years of 2.x branch is pretty impressive.
- crabbone 3y ago
  You took just one example. And, although there weren't many cases of proprietary languages or almost-proprietary languages dying in recent years, there are, of course, examples of them dying. You just picked one where this didn't happen... So, ActionScript would be one example. Dylan would be another. There are probably many more of lesser known proprietary languages that died never making the news. And, looping back to the original subject: parent believes there's no danger in using an almost-proprietary language, where the evidence is that owners of proprietary languages do kill them every now and then. Do they do it all the time? -- well, no, but I didn't claim anything like that... --- As to your observation about Python 2.X -- you didn't understand in what context the argument was made. C, or any other language with a standard is warranted the lifetime that's as long as humanity is able to read and understand the standard as well as implementing it. So, 20 years will be essentially insignificant compared to the longevity of a language with a published standard. Please don't confuse this to me advocating for every language needing a standard. Writing one severely restricts what a language can offer, while at the same time, immortalizing potentially harmful features. Going back to see, we wish today that all the str* stuff would be gone, or stuff like atoi()... but that's not an option anymore, because this stuff made it into the standard. Languages w/o one can shed their skin and remove bad decisions. But, this same feature makes them less viable for long-term projects.
usrbinbash 3y ago
> What if Google goes under? Then Go is still an Open Source Project with massive community support, that everyoen is free to form and extend or maintain by himself. > What makes you so convinced "someone" will take over? Because tens of thousands of projects depend on the language? Because the people who developed go don't just vanish if Google suddenly did? Because OSS has a long history of maintenance changing hands? > sure, someone will step in and maintain Python 2.X indefinitely... Well, no one did. There is a simple reason for that: Py2 was obsoleted by it's successor, Py3. There is simply no point in maintaining an obsolete language, especially if it has a direct successor, that is both similar, and an improvement in every single way. And even so, Python 2.7 was still supported for almost a decade after it's release.

cpuguy83 3y ago

Go has breaking changes frequently.

saturn_vk 3y ago
Ok, could you name 10?
- cpuguy83 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - usrbinbash 3y ago
    > What a terrible comment. How is asking for examples for a statement a "terrible comment"? >go is changing the loop semantics to scope loop variables to the loop. Now, I like and agree with this change, but it is a breaking change. Please explain what exactly that change breaks. > Behavior changes that are only apparent at runtime is where go makes breaking changes. Such as? And yes, I am asking for examples. Because I have personally compiled and run code that was written in Go 1.8, with a modern compiler. And the only change I saw so far, is better performance.
    - cpuguy83 3y ago
      > How is asking for examples for a statement a "terrible comment"? Demanding 10 examples is a terrible comment. It communicates hostility and disbelief rather than curiosity. > Please explain what exactly that change breaks. https://github.com/golang/go/issues/60078 https://github.com/golang/go/issues/60078 is where this is discussed. Again, I _agree_ with this change, but I'm pointing out that it is a breaking change. rsc points out in the proposal that it is a breaking change. > Such as? And yes, I am asking for examples. Because I have personally compiled and run code that was written in Go 1.8, with a modern compiler. And the only change I saw so far, is better performance. I gave multiple examples already. If you are truly interested I'm sure you can find more either in the go issue tracker or on google.