3 ms·

Your opinion seems a bit outdated. Go has had generics for almost 2 years now.

by Hendrikto 3y ago

randomdata 3y ago
And enumerations from the start.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  No it doesn't, it has a hack using constants and iota.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    Which is what an enumeration is. Perhaps you're thinking of sum types? They are often confused as enums.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      Not at all. Go read Algol 60, Pascal, Modula-2, C manuals to understand what enumerations are all about. Not a comic dance between iota and manually written constants.
      - randomdata 3y ago
        It's always bizarre when someone on a discussion forum defers to the writings of someone else. If that someone else wanted to have a discussion, they could do so themselves. But since I'm in a silly mood, I'll play along with your silliness: From the GNU C manual: "An enumeration type represents a limited set of integer values, each with a name." Which is exactly what Go provides. Which isn't surprising as it is identical to C in that regard.
        pjmlp 3y ago
        No my dear, this hack type Operation int const ( Escalated Operation = iota Archived Deleted Completed ) has nothing to do with typedef enum {Escalated, Archived, Deleted, Completed} Operation; Only someone that can't get type systems would ever assert they are the same. Literally "Go enums suck", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39564737 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39564737
        randomdata 3y ago
        > "Go enums suck" Enums suck, period. That's why many modern languages don't offer enums at all, providing sum types instead, which more accurately model what most people are trying to use enumerations for. It is an antiquated pattern that may have served a useful purpose in the early days of computing, but we've learned a thing or two about programming since then. Well, at least you've come around to recognizing that Go does have enums, even if you needed someone else's words to say it. After all, Go enums can't suck if it doesn't have them. But, of course, Go purposefully tries to be antiquated. That's kind of its whole deal. Naturally it is going to have enums to really drive home the antiquatedness.
pjmlp 3y ago
It only took 13 years to get there.
- foldr 3y ago
  If Go had added generics from the start, it's very unlikely that the implementation would be as solid as the current one. I think their conservative approach paid off in this case.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Did it? It still has several warts, and now gccgo is kind of abandoned, left to stagnate in Go 1.18. Unfortunely Rust wasn't mature enough in 2013, otherwise the main programing language of most CNCF projects would not have been Go.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - foldr 3y ago
      I think you're making my case for me here :) Yes, Go reached maturity faster than Rust (despite its first release occurring later – one of the many benefits of simplicity), and the lack of generics doesn't seem to have hurt its adoption. Another victory for Worse is Better.
      - littlestymaar 3y ago
        > Go reached maturity faster than Rust (despite its first release occurring later – one of the many benefits of simplicity) Rust started as a research language by a PL guy working on his free time, he wasn't even suspecting his work would end up becoming mainstream. Rust only became somewhat serious several years after Go was released and used in production at Google. If you count Graydon's first Rust publication, you may as well count all of plan9 as part of Go's history! (Or how about using Go's repository first commit[0] if we're being facetious) Also, implementing proper generics should have been straightforward from the start for Go, given that it was already mainstream in multiple programming languages back then (including the super mainstream Java and C#, with different approach). But Go was made by people who believe syntax highlighting is useless, of course they decided against generics… [0] https://github.com/golang/go/commit/7d7c6a97f815e9279d08cfaea7d5efb5e90695a8 https://github.com/golang/go/commit/7d7c6a97f815e9279d08cfae...

Your opinion seems a bit outdated. Go has had generics for almost 2 years now.

randomdata 3y ago

And enumerations from the start.

pjmlp 3y ago
No it doesn't, it has a hack using constants and iota.
- randomdata 3y ago
  Which is what an enumeration is. Perhaps you're thinking of sum types? They are often confused as enums.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Not at all. Go read Algol 60, Pascal, Modula-2, C manuals to understand what enumerations are all about. Not a comic dance between iota and manually written constants.
    - randomdata 3y ago
      It's always bizarre when someone on a discussion forum defers to the writings of someone else. If that someone else wanted to have a discussion, they could do so themselves. But since I'm in a silly mood, I'll play along with your silliness: From the GNU C manual: "An enumeration type represents a limited set of integer values, each with a name." Which is exactly what Go provides. Which isn't surprising as it is identical to C in that regard.
      - pjmlp 3y ago
        No my dear, this hack type Operation int const ( Escalated Operation = iota Archived Deleted Completed ) has nothing to do with typedef enum {Escalated, Archived, Deleted, Completed} Operation; Only someone that can't get type systems would ever assert they are the same. Literally "Go enums suck", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39564737 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39564737
        randomdata 3y ago
        > "Go enums suck" Enums suck, period. That's why many modern languages don't offer enums at all, providing sum types instead, which more accurately model what most people are trying to use enumerations for. It is an antiquated pattern that may have served a useful purpose in the early days of computing, but we've learned a thing or two about programming since then. Well, at least you've come around to recognizing that Go does have enums, even if you needed someone else's words to say it. After all, Go enums can't suck if it doesn't have them. But, of course, Go purposefully tries to be antiquated. That's kind of its whole deal. Naturally it is going to have enums to really drive home the antiquatedness.

pjmlp 3y ago

It only took 13 years to get there.

foldr 3y ago
If Go had added generics from the start, it's very unlikely that the implementation would be as solid as the current one. I think their conservative approach paid off in this case.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Did it? It still has several warts, and now gccgo is kind of abandoned, left to stagnate in Go 1.18. Unfortunely Rust wasn't mature enough in 2013, otherwise the main programing language of most CNCF projects would not have been Go.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - foldr 3y ago
    I think you're making my case for me here :) Yes, Go reached maturity faster than Rust (despite its first release occurring later – one of the many benefits of simplicity), and the lack of generics doesn't seem to have hurt its adoption. Another victory for Worse is Better.
    - littlestymaar 3y ago
      > Go reached maturity faster than Rust (despite its first release occurring later – one of the many benefits of simplicity) Rust started as a research language by a PL guy working on his free time, he wasn't even suspecting his work would end up becoming mainstream. Rust only became somewhat serious several years after Go was released and used in production at Google. If you count Graydon's first Rust publication, you may as well count all of plan9 as part of Go's history! (Or how about using Go's repository first commit[0] if we're being facetious) Also, implementing proper generics should have been straightforward from the start for Go, given that it was already mainstream in multiple programming languages back then (including the super mainstream Java and C#, with different approach). But Go was made by people who believe syntax highlighting is useless, of course they decided against generics… [0] https://github.com/golang/go/commit/7d7c6a97f815e9279d08cfaea7d5efb5e90695a8 https://github.com/golang/go/commit/7d7c6a97f815e9279d08cfae...