4 ms·

Microsoft has a massive investment in C#, but they still evaluated (and picked) golang.

MBCook 1y ago
For TypeScript’s compiler, yes. I can see some real benefits, like Go is already common for some open source software they want to collaborate with non-MS people on. I suspect C# is much less common for that, and when targeting pure performance I suspect a bytecode language like C# wouldn’t have the same large gain. I’m not in the .NET ecosystem so I don’t know if native AOT compilation to machine code is an option. But anyway, in this case Apple is making an internal service for themselves. I think a better comparison for MS would be if they chose to rewrite some Windows service’s server back end. Would they choose Go for that? I don’t know.
- latchkey 1y ago
  The real question isn’t whether they would choose it, but whether they’d be willing to evaluate it. Given their past behavior, as I mentioned above, it seems they are open to assessing options and selecting the best tool for the job.
  - MBCook 1y ago
    They are certainly far more open these days. I remember when it was Microsoft tools and Microsoft languages on Microsoft servers or nothing. They’d have never touched Go with a 10 foot poll.
- wiseowise 1y ago
  You just stated a comment away that Apple chose Swift because of massive investment. Microsoft has much, MUCH bigger investment in C#, but you find all the reason why your original argument is invalid. The article is just a marketing for a team looking for promo, there’s no deep meaning or larger Apple scheme here.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Native AOT is quite good enough nowadays, I think there were other politics at play. Azure team has no issues using AI to convert from C++ to Rust, see RustNation UK 2025 talks. Also they mention the reason being a port not a rewrite, yet they had anyway to rewrite the whole AST datastructures due to the weaker typesystem in Go. Finally, the WebAssembly tooling to support Blazor is much more mature than what Go has.

For TypeScript’s compiler, yes. I can see some real benefits, like Go is already common for some open source software they want to collaborate with non-MS people on. I suspect C# is much less common for that, and when targeting pure performance I suspect a bytecode language like C# wouldn’t have the same large gain. I’m not in the .NET ecosystem so I don’t know if native AOT compilation to machine code is an option. But anyway, in this case Apple is making an internal service for themselves. I think a better comparison for MS would be if they chose to rewrite some Windows service’s server back end. Would they choose Go for that? I don’t know.

latchkey 1y ago
The real question isn’t whether they would choose it, but whether they’d be willing to evaluate it. Given their past behavior, as I mentioned above, it seems they are open to assessing options and selecting the best tool for the job.
- MBCook 1y ago
  They are certainly far more open these days. I remember when it was Microsoft tools and Microsoft languages on Microsoft servers or nothing. They’d have never touched Go with a 10 foot poll.
wiseowise 1y ago
You just stated a comment away that Apple chose Swift because of massive investment. Microsoft has much, MUCH bigger investment in C#, but you find all the reason why your original argument is invalid. The article is just a marketing for a team looking for promo, there’s no deep meaning or larger Apple scheme here.
pjmlp 1y ago
Native AOT is quite good enough nowadays, I think there were other politics at play. Azure team has no issues using AI to convert from C++ to Rust, see RustNation UK 2025 talks. Also they mention the reason being a port not a rewrite, yet they had anyway to rewrite the whole AST datastructures due to the weaker typesystem in Go. Finally, the WebAssembly tooling to support Blazor is much more mature than what Go has.