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I learned programming from a Java 7 book in high school. When I went through the Tour of Go, I found myself shocked that anybody would want to write software in

I learned programming from a Java 7 book in high school. When I went through the Tour of Go, I found myself shocked that anybody would want to write software in a language like this. Where is inheritance? Where is the data structures package? I couldn't even find a standard linked list. What if I have a list where I need to make lots of insertions in the middle? My 15-year-old self would be shocked at my day-to-day as an engineer now.

silisili 1y ago
Coming from Java or any heavy OO language is probably a bit of a shock. I've never really missed inheritance with the way it does composition. I think one of the 'mantras' of Go is having the writer know the cost of what they're doing, at the expense of a lot of helpers. The issue is it's a bit inconsistent IMO. Like, they make you iterate to copy a map, but not to copy a slice. It feels like it should lean more heavily one way or the other. I -would- definitely like more in the standard data structures and algos realm. I used to be more active on golang-nuts, and a lot of the replies to such ideas was "it's so easy to write yourself, look at this 5 liner, why make a package for it." Initially I kinda understood, but years in, after rewriting the same things over and over, it would be nice to one line a lot of this.
Mawr 1y ago
> Where is inheritance? It's been widely considered as a mistake for about two decades now... > I couldn't even find a standard linked list. Even? If you need a linked list, then you have a 0.01% use case and shouldn't expect such a niche data structure to be easily available. That said, https://pkg.go.dev/container/list https://pkg.go.dev/container/list > What if I have a list where I need to make lots of insertions in the middle? Then you should use an array. If you're not making full use of the pointer-y nature of a linked list, you shouldn't be using it. > Where is the data structures package? Go only got generics in 2022 so the standard library is lacking in ergonomic data structures.
- kweingar 1y ago
  Exactly right. My books (and later, college courses) emphasized linked lists and inheritance as fundamental concepts of programming, but the reality as a working engineer is totally different. When I first encountered Go, I was still a learner and the lack of these things in the language and standard libraries shocked me. But it turns out that they were writing a language more for practical software engineering than for outdated curricula. At the end of the day, structs, slices, and maps cover 99% of what you need!

silisili 1y ago

Coming from Java or any heavy OO language is probably a bit of a shock. I've never really missed inheritance with the way it does composition. I think one of the 'mantras' of Go is having the writer know the cost of what they're doing, at the expense of a lot of helpers. The issue is it's a bit inconsistent IMO. Like, they make you iterate to copy a map, but not to copy a slice. It feels like it should lean more heavily one way or the other. I -would- definitely like more in the standard data structures and algos realm. I used to be more active on golang-nuts, and a lot of the replies to such ideas was "it's so easy to write yourself, look at this 5 liner, why make a package for it." Initially I kinda understood, but years in, after rewriting the same things over and over, it would be nice to one line a lot of this.

Mawr 1y ago

> Where is inheritance? It's been widely considered as a mistake for about two decades now... > I couldn't even find a standard linked list. Even? If you need a linked list, then you have a 0.01% use case and shouldn't expect such a niche data structure to be easily available. That said, https://pkg.go.dev/container/list https://pkg.go.dev/container/list > What if I have a list where I need to make lots of insertions in the middle? Then you should use an array. If you're not making full use of the pointer-y nature of a linked list, you shouldn't be using it. > Where is the data structures package? Go only got generics in 2022 so the standard library is lacking in ergonomic data structures.

kweingar 1y ago
Exactly right. My books (and later, college courses) emphasized linked lists and inheritance as fundamental concepts of programming, but the reality as a working engineer is totally different. When I first encountered Go, I was still a learner and the lack of these things in the language and standard libraries shocked me. But it turns out that they were writing a language more for practical software engineering than for outdated curricula. At the end of the day, structs, slices, and maps cover 99% of what you need!