3 ms·

I'm really not a fan of small qol features like this. I think it really hurts readability for the general audience. The function itself is minimal overhead and

I'm really not a fan of small qol features like this. I think it really hurts readability for the general audience. The function itself is minimal overhead and is clearer to the reader.

ogogmad 3y ago
The world seems like it's moving to ML. That needs matrices, complex numbers, autodiff, different fixed/floating point types. All four of these need operator overloading.
- yangl1996 3y ago
  Your last sentence seems fishy to me. Are you suggesting that support for C++ like operator overloading is a necessary condition for, say, autodiff? I thought Go is a Turing complete language.
  - ogogmad 3y ago
    Operator overloading is about syntax and type safety. Brainfuck is Turing complete.
    - campbel 3y ago
      I agree it is about syntax. But how is it about type safety?
      - ogogmad 3y ago
        You might want the same piece of code to work correctly under different numerical types. Answer: Op overloading + generics. E.g. Dual numbers for autodiff; 2x2 matrices of quaternions for texture mapping; matrices of differing floating point types for machine learning. Why should I implement the same matrix operations a million times over?
- campbel 3y ago
  Could you explain _why_ they need overloads and functions don't work? That does not immediately follow for me.
  - ogogmad 3y ago
    Autodiff requires interpreting the same piece of code using "dual numbers" that would normally expect "real numbers". This needs operator overloading combined with generics.
anonymoushn 3y ago
That's true, we should get rid of operators for primitives too.
- campbel 3y ago
  Operators for primitive types are fine, they are well defined by the language and consistent across programs. Operator overloading is going to change behavior between programs which puts extra cognitive load on the reader. That said, Go sticks to the most basic operator implementation (strings, numbers etc...). Go doesn't support `+` on slices for instance.
- coldtea 3y ago
  In better languages they don't exist except as sugar, they're functions themselves.

I'm really not a fan of small qol features like this. I think it really hurts readability for the general audience. The function itself is minimal overhead and is clearer to the reader.

ogogmad 3y ago

The world seems like it's moving to ML. That needs matrices, complex numbers, autodiff, different fixed/floating point types. All four of these need operator overloading.

yangl1996 3y ago
Your last sentence seems fishy to me. Are you suggesting that support for C++ like operator overloading is a necessary condition for, say, autodiff? I thought Go is a Turing complete language.
- ogogmad 3y ago
  Operator overloading is about syntax and type safety. Brainfuck is Turing complete.
  - campbel 3y ago
    I agree it is about syntax. But how is it about type safety?
    - ogogmad 3y ago
      You might want the same piece of code to work correctly under different numerical types. Answer: Op overloading + generics. E.g. Dual numbers for autodiff; 2x2 matrices of quaternions for texture mapping; matrices of differing floating point types for machine learning. Why should I implement the same matrix operations a million times over?
campbel 3y ago
Could you explain _why_ they need overloads and functions don't work? That does not immediately follow for me.
- ogogmad 3y ago
  Autodiff requires interpreting the same piece of code using "dual numbers" that would normally expect "real numbers". This needs operator overloading combined with generics.

anonymoushn 3y ago

That's true, we should get rid of operators for primitives too.

campbel 3y ago
Operators for primitive types are fine, they are well defined by the language and consistent across programs. Operator overloading is going to change behavior between programs which puts extra cognitive load on the reader. That said, Go sticks to the most basic operator implementation (strings, numbers etc...). Go doesn't support `+` on slices for instance.
coldtea 3y ago
In better languages they don't exist except as sugar, they're functions themselves.