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I didn't develop too much because as I said in another thread, I wrote this post without giving much thought. Sorry for not being at the HN standards, but this

by kokada 2y ago

I didn't develop too much because as I said in another thread, I wrote this post without giving much thought. Sorry for not being at the HN standards, but this post wasn't even supposed to be here, and here we are ;). That said, I think given the current state of the language, adding nullability would be much easier to do than adding Union or Sum types. And from my experience with Kotlin, nullability already gives much of the benefits. I am not saying I will not change my opinion in the future. I got my first job working with a language that has algebraic types (Scala), so my opinion may change in future. However, even if it changes I think getting Union or Sum types in a language like Go is impossible, while nullables are unlikely to happen but at least not impossible.

MarkMarine 2y ago
I don’t follow. Why would getting sum types in go be impossible? There is already a proposal for this: https://github.com/golang/go/issues/57644 https://github.com/golang/go/issues/57644 The generic type params already supports a sum type like interface, it’s almost there. So, if you could, please expound with on “why” Is there something in the type system, something in the compiler that prevents it? Anyway, re: not up to HN standards… I’m not sure what you’re talking about. You made it to the front page, you called out some legitimate issues, I liked reading what you had to say, I was just asking for more
- kokada 2y ago
  I think I recommend you reading the proposal them. I don't claim of being a specialist in Go to say if it is possible or not, but I find it highly unlikely given how the language is. The reason I think nullability is more likely than sum types is because Go tries to be a simple language (whatever the developers of the language think simple is), and nullability is simpler than sum types (both to implement and use). But again, I don't have any special insight

by kokada 2y ago

MarkMarine 2y ago

I don’t follow. Why would getting sum types in go be impossible? There is already a proposal for this: https://github.com/golang/go/issues/57644 https://github.com/golang/go/issues/57644 The generic type params already supports a sum type like interface, it’s almost there. So, if you could, please expound with on “why” Is there something in the type system, something in the compiler that prevents it? Anyway, re: not up to HN standards… I’m not sure what you’re talking about. You made it to the front page, you called out some legitimate issues, I liked reading what you had to say, I was just asking for more

kokada 2y ago
I think I recommend you reading the proposal them. I don't claim of being a specialist in Go to say if it is possible or not, but I find it highly unlikely given how the language is. The reason I think nullability is more likely than sum types is because Go tries to be a simple language (whatever the developers of the language think simple is), and nullability is simpler than sum types (both to implement and use). But again, I don't have any special insight