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> it does feel to me like a language designed to prevent poor programmers from making mistakes. That's Rust. I would not call _any_ language containing some ki

> it does feel to me like a language designed to prevent poor programmers from making mistakes. That's Rust. I would not call _any_ language containing some kind of nil pointers to be " designed to prevent poor programmers from making mistakes". Go is mainly designed to be "easy to read" (and excels at that if you are used to C-style syntax).

rightbyte 3y ago
Easy to read? That would be Python. I would say Go is designed to be fast to learn for experienced programmers. Null pointers are a free runtime check for invalid assumptions. I don't understand the fuzz about them being bad at all.
- kettro 3y ago
  I find python quite hard to read, honestly. The lack of typing in most python means that it isn’t immediately clear what a given piece of code does without diving into its implementation. You have to rely on docstrings (good luck) or descriptive naming. The issue with null pointers is that they are, as you said, a stand-in for an invalid state. However, most null pointers don’t prevent you from trying to use the underlying data, which can, among other things, cause crashes (think not checking the return value of malloc). Additionally, it doesn’t make formal the litany of possible forms that a value can take — if you codify possible states, then you don’t always need to check everything. I’m currently working to port security firmware from C to Rust, and I’ve found I make fewer state checks, because the data I’m working with has bounded state — the data given cannot be in an invalid state.
  - harkinian 3y ago
    Types really only help when they're primitives. You're going to have a million random classes that are only used in a few places. Seeing `ConfigManagerFactory config_manager_factory` doesn't help. What helps is avoiding excessive oop and making sure objects are printable for debug, imo something Javascript does a lot better. Re null pointers, in Java or Python they raise an exception. Isn't that ok? It doesn't end up doing something invalid like in C.

rightbyte 3y ago

Easy to read? That would be Python. I would say Go is designed to be fast to learn for experienced programmers. Null pointers are a free runtime check for invalid assumptions. I don't understand the fuzz about them being bad at all.

kettro 3y ago
I find python quite hard to read, honestly. The lack of typing in most python means that it isn’t immediately clear what a given piece of code does without diving into its implementation. You have to rely on docstrings (good luck) or descriptive naming. The issue with null pointers is that they are, as you said, a stand-in for an invalid state. However, most null pointers don’t prevent you from trying to use the underlying data, which can, among other things, cause crashes (think not checking the return value of malloc). Additionally, it doesn’t make formal the litany of possible forms that a value can take — if you codify possible states, then you don’t always need to check everything. I’m currently working to port security firmware from C to Rust, and I’ve found I make fewer state checks, because the data I’m working with has bounded state — the data given cannot be in an invalid state.
- harkinian 3y ago
  Types really only help when they're primitives. You're going to have a million random classes that are only used in a few places. Seeing `ConfigManagerFactory config_manager_factory` doesn't help. What helps is avoiding excessive oop and making sure objects are printable for debug, imo something Javascript does a lot better. Re null pointers, in Java or Python they raise an exception. Isn't that ok? It doesn't end up doing something invalid like in C.