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Well done, writing interpreters is fun! I’m not really sold on why Go would be a particularly good fit for the task, compared to other languages. Seems to be m

Well done, writing interpreters is fun! I’m not really sold on why Go would be a particularly good fit for the task, compared to other languages. Seems to be mostly “interfaces are useful for interpreters, and GC means I don’t have to care about memory management” - both of which are true but hardly specific to Go. There’s some form of interface in almost every mainstream language, I think the implementation would be pretty much the same in any GCd language

9rx 1y ago
> I’m not really sold on why Go would be a particularly good fit for the task, compared to other languages. Can't every language rock for building a Lua interpreter? It isn't a competition.
- williamdclt 1y ago
  I think that’s re-interpretation, making the subject of the article about “why go rocks” shows the author thinks Go has something over other languages. Otherwise it’s like saying “why orange cats are fluffy” then saying stuff that applies to all cats without orangeness specificity
  - 9rx 1y ago
    > shows the author thinks Go has something over other languages. How so? It is clearly just a story of someone's experience, not a technical evaluation of various languages. The only other language (aside from Lua) mentioned is C, and the C implementation was considered so good that it was to be the direct model for the implementation in the story, so we can assume that writing a Lua interpreter in C also rocks. > Otherwise it’s like saying “why orange cats are fluffy” Sure. That seems like a reasonably fair title for a story about your fluffy orange cat, even if other cats (and other animals, not to mention other things that aren't animals) are also fluffy. You could call it "Fluffy" instead, I suppose, but then someone would complain about the lack of details. You can never please everyone. But, regardless of how you want to interpret the title, it remains that there isn't a competition. There never has been, never will be. A poorly written title wouldn't magically create a competition. Where does the bizarre idea that there is one stemming from?
    - osigurdson 1y ago
      Usually when something "rocks" it is better than other things in some way. I guess it can mean anything though.
      - 9rx 1y ago
        "Rocks" is most commonly used in the context of (rock) music. A statement like "<insert band> rocks!" usually indicates that someone enjoys said band. But what makes you think it also means that they see other bands as now being inferior in some way? As far as I can tell, most people who find a band that "rocks" also enjoy other bands as well, often even more, and are not looking for some kind of a battle of the bands to find the one true band that they will only ever listen to again. It is quite possible, and typical, for (rock) music fans to enjoy many bands. You are right that words mean only what the speaker/author intends for them to mean, but in common usage there is nothing to suggest that "rocks" implies something is better than something else. It only suggests something in the vein of "I enjoy this". Besides, we know what the author meant as he has told us. Even we were to agree that the title is poorly written, we know from other context that there isn't a programming language competition. This single title wouldn't suddenly make us think that there is one. So where has the idea that there is one coming from?
        osigurdson 1y ago
        >> "Rocks" is most commonly used in the context of (rock) music False. >> we know from other context that there isn't a programming language competition. I would have expected at least one comparison to another programming language. Like "COBOL" was a real pain for this, but "Go rocks". >> ... other stuff ... Yeah, I don't really care one way or the other. If people want say that everything in space and time are completely undifferentiated and therefore "rock" equally, I don't really care. Rock on.
        9rx 1y ago
        > I don't really care one way or the other. Nobody does. Why would they? It isn't like there is a competition or something. > If people want say that everything in space and time are completely undifferentiated and therefore "rock" equally, I don't really care. Many things having the potential to "rock" does not imply that everything "rocks" equally, or at all. I strongly suspect his attempt to write a Lua interpreter in Brainfuck would not "rock".
  - zombiezen 1y ago
    As the author of the article, I'll say that my intent was to share the good time I had writing a Lua interpreter in Go. Other folks in the thread are right: more than one thing in this world can rock. :)
lopatin 1y ago
I never thought that Go would be a technology of choise for PL stuff. I always considered it more of a Java-lite for Web systems and also for CLI stuff, but here we are! TypeScript rewrote their compiler to Go. Being a compiler, they had no use of piggy backing on the GC, looks like they just liked the language.
- 3836293648 1y ago
  Typescript chose Go specicfically because they didn't rewrite it. Go has close enough semantics to TypeScript that they could write a Go backend for tsc and do a machine port to Go and continue working from that
  - azemetre 1y ago
    Didn't MSFT also fire the lead engineer for this project shortly after?
    - pjmlp 1y ago
      They did. Also the way the port was sold is a bit misleading, because as described on BUILD 2025 session, they had anyway to redo the whole datastructures due to the more basic Go's type system. Meanwhile Azure is rewriting C++ into Rust with AI tooling, see Microsoft talks at Rust Nation UK 2025.
    - osigurdson 1y ago
      Sorry, who got fired?
      - Rexxar 1y ago
        He means probably Ron Buckton: https://xcancel.com/rbuckton/status/1922364558426911039 https://xcancel.com/rbuckton/status/1922364558426911039
    - foldr 1y ago
      Looks like he was laid off, not fired. But so what? Layoffs have their own weird logic. It doesn’t tell us anything about how the project is perceived internally to Microsoft.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Jyaif 1y ago
I mainly write code in languages without GCs so this article was very interesting to me, and the title was very fitting.

9rx 1y ago

> I’m not really sold on why Go would be a particularly good fit for the task, compared to other languages. Can't every language rock for building a Lua interpreter? It isn't a competition.

williamdclt 1y ago
I think that’s re-interpretation, making the subject of the article about “why go rocks” shows the author thinks Go has something over other languages. Otherwise it’s like saying “why orange cats are fluffy” then saying stuff that applies to all cats without orangeness specificity
- 9rx 1y ago
  > shows the author thinks Go has something over other languages. How so? It is clearly just a story of someone's experience, not a technical evaluation of various languages. The only other language (aside from Lua) mentioned is C, and the C implementation was considered so good that it was to be the direct model for the implementation in the story, so we can assume that writing a Lua interpreter in C also rocks. > Otherwise it’s like saying “why orange cats are fluffy” Sure. That seems like a reasonably fair title for a story about your fluffy orange cat, even if other cats (and other animals, not to mention other things that aren't animals) are also fluffy. You could call it "Fluffy" instead, I suppose, but then someone would complain about the lack of details. You can never please everyone. But, regardless of how you want to interpret the title, it remains that there isn't a competition. There never has been, never will be. A poorly written title wouldn't magically create a competition. Where does the bizarre idea that there is one stemming from?
  - osigurdson 1y ago
    Usually when something "rocks" it is better than other things in some way. I guess it can mean anything though.
    - 9rx 1y ago
      "Rocks" is most commonly used in the context of (rock) music. A statement like "<insert band> rocks!" usually indicates that someone enjoys said band. But what makes you think it also means that they see other bands as now being inferior in some way? As far as I can tell, most people who find a band that "rocks" also enjoy other bands as well, often even more, and are not looking for some kind of a battle of the bands to find the one true band that they will only ever listen to again. It is quite possible, and typical, for (rock) music fans to enjoy many bands. You are right that words mean only what the speaker/author intends for them to mean, but in common usage there is nothing to suggest that "rocks" implies something is better than something else. It only suggests something in the vein of "I enjoy this". Besides, we know what the author meant as he has told us. Even we were to agree that the title is poorly written, we know from other context that there isn't a programming language competition. This single title wouldn't suddenly make us think that there is one. So where has the idea that there is one coming from?
      - osigurdson 1y ago
        >> "Rocks" is most commonly used in the context of (rock) music False. >> we know from other context that there isn't a programming language competition. I would have expected at least one comparison to another programming language. Like "COBOL" was a real pain for this, but "Go rocks". >> ... other stuff ... Yeah, I don't really care one way or the other. If people want say that everything in space and time are completely undifferentiated and therefore "rock" equally, I don't really care. Rock on.
        9rx 1y ago
        > I don't really care one way or the other. Nobody does. Why would they? It isn't like there is a competition or something. > If people want say that everything in space and time are completely undifferentiated and therefore "rock" equally, I don't really care. Many things having the potential to "rock" does not imply that everything "rocks" equally, or at all. I strongly suspect his attempt to write a Lua interpreter in Brainfuck would not "rock".
- zombiezen 1y ago
  As the author of the article, I'll say that my intent was to share the good time I had writing a Lua interpreter in Go. Other folks in the thread are right: more than one thing in this world can rock. :)

lopatin 1y ago

I never thought that Go would be a technology of choise for PL stuff. I always considered it more of a Java-lite for Web systems and also for CLI stuff, but here we are! TypeScript rewrote their compiler to Go. Being a compiler, they had no use of piggy backing on the GC, looks like they just liked the language.

3836293648 1y ago
Typescript chose Go specicfically because they didn't rewrite it. Go has close enough semantics to TypeScript that they could write a Go backend for tsc and do a machine port to Go and continue working from that
- azemetre 1y ago
  Didn't MSFT also fire the lead engineer for this project shortly after?
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    They did. Also the way the port was sold is a bit misleading, because as described on BUILD 2025 session, they had anyway to redo the whole datastructures due to the more basic Go's type system. Meanwhile Azure is rewriting C++ into Rust with AI tooling, see Microsoft talks at Rust Nation UK 2025.
  - osigurdson 1y ago
    Sorry, who got fired?
    - Rexxar 1y ago
      He means probably Ron Buckton: https://xcancel.com/rbuckton/status/1922364558426911039 https://xcancel.com/rbuckton/status/1922364558426911039
  - foldr 1y ago
    Looks like he was laid off, not fired. But so what? Layoffs have their own weird logic. It doesn’t tell us anything about how the project is perceived internally to Microsoft.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

Jyaif 1y ago

I mainly write code in languages without GCs so this article was very interesting to me, and the title was very fitting.