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I agree that his comment need to provide more data. I also find that HN in general is very quick to downvote comments critical of Go, even well reasoned ones wi

I agree that his comment need to provide more data. I also find that HN in general is very quick to downvote comments critical of Go, even well reasoned ones with sources. In terms of performance data check out quad core results for Go 1 (go 1.1 would need to improve by considerably more than 33% to best the JVM): http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=go&lang2=java http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?t... Also see Netty (Java) outperforming go by a wide margin here: http://www.techempower.com/blog/2013/03/28/framework-benchmarks/ http://www.techempower.com/blog/2013/03/28/framework-benchma... The poster's comments regarding GC, heuristics and code generation are vague, but it's no secret that IBM/Sunoracle and co. have very sophisticated GC and JIT implementations which they have been optimizing for 15+ years and it shows through in the benchmark results. I like Go, I just think that we need to be wary of expecting it to be as fast as the JVM and even MSCLR straight out the gate. It will likely take years to reach that level of sophistication.

pjmlp 14y ago
> I also find that HN in general is very quick to downvote comments critical of Go, even well reasoned ones with sources. I am sure if Go wasn't being done at Google, most hackers would actually ignore it. Just check how successful the Go like predecessors from the authors were, when working at other companies. I think the language suffers from an hallo effect.
- enneff 14y ago
  If anything, I think that Go has received a disproportionate amount of criticism and skepticism because it was developed at Google. Go is very mature these days - way more mature than most languages ever get - and that's the result of hard work by the contributors, not its pedigree.
  - pjmlp 14y ago
    And yet it throws out the window quite a few modern language features.
    - iand 14y ago
      Which is to be congratulated. If only more languages were as coherent rather than attempting to cater for every possible constituency. Makes it easier to decide whether Go is the right language choice for the problem at hand. Quite often it won't be and that's fine.
    - enneff 14y ago
      http://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article http://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article
  - trailfox 14y ago
    I've seen posts where "it's from Google" is cited as sufficient explanation for taking an interest in the language. If Go was a random project on GitHub there is very little chance that I would have given it a second look, let alone learning it (which I am presently doing). I have great respect for projects which start out as random GitHub projects and succeed without having the advantage of a name like Google to give them street cred. Most of the negative Go posts I've seen are to do with limitations of the language and performance relative to JVM languages. As much as I think go has a lot going for it I'm not about to claim that it's anywhere near as expressive as Python or even Scala. There has also been some frustration about denials over the performance gap between Go and the JVM despite very clear data in favor of the JVM. I'm not as bothered by the performance gap as I am about the head-in-the-sand denials. The JVM's have been optimized for 15+ years, so it's ok to admit it may be a few more years before performance can match the JVM.
    - enneff 14y ago
      > I've seen posts where "it's from Google" is cited as sufficient explanation for taking an interest That might be enough to draw interest, but what sustains that interest is the quality of the work and the utility of the environment. > If Go was a random project on GitHub Where it's hosted is irrelevant. It's about the work. Plenty of active, popular projects are hosted on GitHub. Some of them were just "random projects on GitHub" when they started. What distinguishes them is that there are motivated groups of people working on them.
      - sigzero 14y ago
        > That might be enough to draw interest That is pretty much the zinger. If Google hadn't been involved, Go probably wouldn't be were it is at all.
- ansible 14y ago
  I am sure if Go wasn't being done at Google, most hackers would actually ignore it. I would hope that we hackers would pay at least some attention to any project involving Ken Thompson and Rob Pike though.
Roboprog 14y ago
Good thing one of the key contributors to the HotSpot JIT is part of the core Go team (please don't ask me to spell the Swiss guy's name). Give them another couple years, Go may well pull up to the same "asymptote" for GC performance, tuning, and such.
- trailfox 14y ago
  Robert Griesemer http://research.google.com/pubs/author96.html http://research.google.com/pubs/author96.html
voidlogic 14y ago
Why don't you just post the link to Go 1.1 beta 1 vs Java/JVM rather than speculating? http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=go&lang2=java http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?te...
- igouy 14y ago
  Please check which Go version was used for the measurements `trailfox` pointed to ;-)
  - trailfox 14y ago
    Good point. It turns out that the quad core benchmarks on 32bit which I linked to are already using Go 1.1beta, so any speed gains for Go 1.1 are already factored in: http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=go&lang2=java http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?t... The 64 bit quad core benchmark is using go 1.0.3: http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=go&lang2=java http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?t...
    - voidlogic 14y ago
      Go does has known issues and does poorly on 32-bit x86. I would not draw any meaningful conclusions from it about Go in general.
      - igouy 14y ago
        Would you draw meaningful conclusions from the x64 measurements in-general -- knowing that they don't hold for x86 ;-)
        voidlogic 14y ago
        I do see your point, but the vast majority of Go production code runs on Linux/amd64, so yes, that is the most meaningful result.

pjmlp 14y ago

> I also find that HN in general is very quick to downvote comments critical of Go, even well reasoned ones with sources. I am sure if Go wasn't being done at Google, most hackers would actually ignore it. Just check how successful the Go like predecessors from the authors were, when working at other companies. I think the language suffers from an hallo effect.

enneff 14y ago
If anything, I think that Go has received a disproportionate amount of criticism and skepticism because it was developed at Google. Go is very mature these days - way more mature than most languages ever get - and that's the result of hard work by the contributors, not its pedigree.
- pjmlp 14y ago
  And yet it throws out the window quite a few modern language features.
  - iand 14y ago
    Which is to be congratulated. If only more languages were as coherent rather than attempting to cater for every possible constituency. Makes it easier to decide whether Go is the right language choice for the problem at hand. Quite often it won't be and that's fine.
  - enneff 14y ago
    http://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article http://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article
- trailfox 14y ago
  I've seen posts where "it's from Google" is cited as sufficient explanation for taking an interest in the language. If Go was a random project on GitHub there is very little chance that I would have given it a second look, let alone learning it (which I am presently doing). I have great respect for projects which start out as random GitHub projects and succeed without having the advantage of a name like Google to give them street cred. Most of the negative Go posts I've seen are to do with limitations of the language and performance relative to JVM languages. As much as I think go has a lot going for it I'm not about to claim that it's anywhere near as expressive as Python or even Scala. There has also been some frustration about denials over the performance gap between Go and the JVM despite very clear data in favor of the JVM. I'm not as bothered by the performance gap as I am about the head-in-the-sand denials. The JVM's have been optimized for 15+ years, so it's ok to admit it may be a few more years before performance can match the JVM.
  - enneff 14y ago
    > I've seen posts where "it's from Google" is cited as sufficient explanation for taking an interest That might be enough to draw interest, but what sustains that interest is the quality of the work and the utility of the environment. > If Go was a random project on GitHub Where it's hosted is irrelevant. It's about the work. Plenty of active, popular projects are hosted on GitHub. Some of them were just "random projects on GitHub" when they started. What distinguishes them is that there are motivated groups of people working on them.
    - sigzero 14y ago
      > That might be enough to draw interest That is pretty much the zinger. If Google hadn't been involved, Go probably wouldn't be were it is at all.
ansible 14y ago
I am sure if Go wasn't being done at Google, most hackers would actually ignore it. I would hope that we hackers would pay at least some attention to any project involving Ken Thompson and Rob Pike though.

Roboprog 14y ago

Good thing one of the key contributors to the HotSpot JIT is part of the core Go team (please don't ask me to spell the Swiss guy's name). Give them another couple years, Go may well pull up to the same "asymptote" for GC performance, tuning, and such.

trailfox 14y ago
Robert Griesemer http://research.google.com/pubs/author96.html http://research.google.com/pubs/author96.html

voidlogic 14y ago

Why don't you just post the link to Go 1.1 beta 1 vs Java/JVM rather than speculating? http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=go&lang2=java http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?te...

igouy 14y ago
Please check which Go version was used for the measurements `trailfox` pointed to ;-)
- trailfox 14y ago
  Good point. It turns out that the quad core benchmarks on 32bit which I linked to are already using Go 1.1beta, so any speed gains for Go 1.1 are already factored in: http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=go&lang2=java http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?t... The 64 bit quad core benchmark is using go 1.0.3: http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=go&lang2=java http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?t...
  - voidlogic 14y ago
    Go does has known issues and does poorly on 32-bit x86. I would not draw any meaningful conclusions from it about Go in general.
    - igouy 14y ago
      Would you draw meaningful conclusions from the x64 measurements in-general -- knowing that they don't hold for x86 ;-)
      - voidlogic 14y ago
        I do see your point, but the vast majority of Go production code runs on Linux/amd64, so yes, that is the most meaningful result.