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From the article: > (The specific context is that I've got a little Go program to do IP to name DNS lookups (it's in Go for reasons), and on the one hand it wo

by strken 2y ago

From the article: > (The specific context is that I've got a little Go program to do IP to name DNS lookups (it's in Go for reasons), and on the one hand it would be handy to do several DNS lookups in parallel because sometimes they take a while, but on the other hand I want to print the results in command line order because otherwise it gets confusing.) If I was using this program, I too would appreciate ordered results and an early return where possible without breaking the ordering. Edit: and other similar programs might use a limited pool of workers, in which case the user would want to see ordered results as they came in and they would be expected to complete roughly in the same order they were started in.

tptacek 2y ago
To be clear: you can still easily get this result without anything nearly as complex as promises. But as someone who has written this program many times in many languages, I'm not so sure you're right that this behavior is desirable. People go out of their way to install CLI network tools that don't do this.
- strken 2y ago
  I agree that it seems a bit pointless unless you're running a huge batch and that I don't think reading from channels in a for loop should be referred to as promises, but I've written CLI tools where running batches of jobs in parallel and printing the results in order is desirable. I don't think it's a generally undesirable thing. Edit: not quite parallel: I mean with a limited pool of workers, or a partial ordering, or something else that means there's a reason to return results early.
- da_chicken 2y ago
  I think it's safe to assume that it's a toy problem. A simple example. Picking apart the example is a poor counterargument. It might be difficult to imagine a specific trivial example, but expressing a convincing example concretely can itself be a major diversion. Unless you're saying you can guarantee that your alternative is always better in all conceivable cases? Similarly, the existence of others wanting different behavior is also a poor counterargument. The fact that someone wants a Bag doesn't mean that someone else is wrong for wanting an Ordered Set.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    As you can see upthread, it's not my only argument, just the one responders locked in on. But the problem here is also not lack of an ordered set!

by strken 2y ago

tptacek 2y ago

To be clear: you can still easily get this result without anything nearly as complex as promises. But as someone who has written this program many times in many languages, I'm not so sure you're right that this behavior is desirable. People go out of their way to install CLI network tools that don't do this.

strken 2y ago
I agree that it seems a bit pointless unless you're running a huge batch and that I don't think reading from channels in a for loop should be referred to as promises, but I've written CLI tools where running batches of jobs in parallel and printing the results in order is desirable. I don't think it's a generally undesirable thing. Edit: not quite parallel: I mean with a limited pool of workers, or a partial ordering, or something else that means there's a reason to return results early.
da_chicken 2y ago
I think it's safe to assume that it's a toy problem. A simple example. Picking apart the example is a poor counterargument. It might be difficult to imagine a specific trivial example, but expressing a convincing example concretely can itself be a major diversion. Unless you're saying you can guarantee that your alternative is always better in all conceivable cases? Similarly, the existence of others wanting different behavior is also a poor counterargument. The fact that someone wants a Bag doesn't mean that someone else is wrong for wanting an Ordered Set.
- tptacek 2y ago
  As you can see upthread, it's not my only argument, just the one responders locked in on. But the problem here is also not lack of an ordered set!