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There sure has been a ton of Golang hype lately. At the risk of being downvoted, just wanted to add my 2 cents: seems obvious to me that Google's PR team has

There sure has been a ton of Golang hype lately. At the risk of being downvoted, just wanted to add my 2 cents: seems obvious to me that Google's PR team has been in full motion on Go lately. At the very least, there are quite a few Google fans active on HN routinely pushing Go. Which is no problem of course. I just find this somewhat frustrating given that we also have the massive NSA surveillance scandal unfolding. Because I'd like to think that intelligent, free-thinking hackers would opt for using products & technologies from companies & organizations not so directly, deeply, and intricately involved in said scandal. Anyway, kudos to Dan for his detailed article - I'm sure he could care less about the political alignment of the corporation he is getting his tools from - and really it should be about technology first; so if Golang fits his needs most optimally then by all means that's what he should be using. Just saying, don't forget about the alternatives ;)

tiziano88 13y ago
My understanding is that Go is an open source project, of which the main maintainers are employed full-time by Google specifically in order to improve the language and make it more useful and used within the company itself.
- mrschwabe 13y ago
  Sure, perhaps it could be said then that Go is similar to that of Android. Which is the prime example of one of Google's 'open' projects that has done wonders for its' industry. Yet given the NSA's surveillance scandal and Google's long history of a close & secretive working relationship with the NSA - today perhaps we should be questioning whether or not we are still comfortable using an Android device. Or programming with Go.
  - tiziano88 13y ago
    The answer -- at least for me -- is "yes", as long the "open" component of those projects remains intact.
  - turing 13y ago
    Yet given the NSA's surveillance scandal and Google's long history of a close & secretive working relationship with the NSA I'd love to hear evidence of this relationship instead of your speculative fear mongering.
    - mrschwabe 13y ago
      http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/google-nsa-secrecy-upheld/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/google-nsa-secrecy-... http://www.pcworld.com/article/217550/google_watchdog_white_house.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/217550/google_watchdog_white_...
      - cageface 13y ago
        Neither of these articles prove anything like the kind of claims you're making. I'm concerned about PRISM too but I've yet to see any evidence that Google is any more willingly complicit in it than any other US tech giant.
        coldtea 13y ago
        Never understood the kind of people who wont believe obvious things without first seing a smoking gun on the hands of the culprit and/or a written confession. I guess it's what passes for valid to the politically naive.
        mrschwabe 13y ago
        Indeed. Put it this way, if you suspect a serial killer has taken residence in your neighborhood - are you going to wait around for a 'smoking gun' before making conscious decisions about your interactions with that individual?
        cageface 13y ago
        So what's your alternative if every single one of your neighbors is a serial killer? Like I said, I share your concerns about PRISM but singling out Google seems like losing the forest for a tree when we have abundant evidence that all the US tech giants have been forced to comply with NSA requests.
kailuowang 13y ago
I think it's unnecessary to feel frustrated. "intelligent, free-thinking hackers" can make their judgement on a technology if they are given complete information about it, which is the case here since, as pointed out by the other comment, Go is an open source project.
- mrschwabe 13y ago
  Good point man. Probably it's always unnecessary to feel frustrated - I guess just with political type stuff it is more easy to succumb to it.
thezilch 13y ago
FUD. What proof are you referring to that Google is "directly, deeply, and intricately involved in said scandal?" Should the industry drop C++ (Microsoft) and Java (Oracle) support or similar (Scala, Python, etc)? AMD and Intel processing? All American companies; completely ludicrous.
- mrschwabe 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PRISM_Collection_Details.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PRISM_Collection_Details.j... And there is plenty of other reading material to review regarding Google's history with the NSA (see my other links posted in the nested comment below). Perhaps I should not have said "directly, deeply, and intricately involved in said scandal" in the tone of 'matter of fact' - because it is indeed an opinion, but I'm just drawing what I feel are logical conclusions. IMO Google is the NSA's primary Trojan Horse into the free market. I am in no means declaring this as fact, like I said originally - just wanted to drop my '2 cents' if that's OK.
  - thezilch 13y ago
    It goes deeper than that. You are suggesting that intellectual, free thinking and Google can't coexist, or to work AT or WITH Google is to be not intellectual nor free thinking. It's ludicrous to label Google employees and users. You would suggest that Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, Ken Thompson, and those Google employees that publicly deny your FUD [0] can't be intelligent, free-thinking hackers. Crazy. [0] https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream/z13qvvpjivahzpnbo04cghl5dpa2ytui4wg0k https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream/z13qvvpjivahzpnbo04... (Yonatan Zunger [Chief Architect, Google+] denies PRISM wholesale)
    - mrschwabe 13y ago
      I believe you're taking my comment out of context. I shared 'my 2 cents'; an opinion - and did not label Google users or employees. I apologize if you found my comment rude, but I clearly intended it to be taken with a grain of salt.
tptacek 13y ago
For the past ~68 days or so, this is literally the only thing you've talked about here. PRISM NSA PRISM PRISM NSA. Whatever floats your boat, but please stop trying to inject politics onto programming threads.
- mrschwabe 13y ago
  I appreciate your feedback. In all fairness, before today my last comment was 46 days ago. And before that there are only handful of comments regarding this issue - looks like all within the same week of the NSA news breaking. Anyway, next time perhaps I can simply write an article and submit it as a separate thread; rather than speaking out in the thread itself. Thanks again.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Writing an article is a much, much better idea.
tracker1 13y ago
I really think it should be about the technology first... I have seen a lot of the same sort of opinions hold back adoption of Mono for projects, because .Net itself came out of Microsoft. Java is now owned by Oracle... so does that mean we should get to migrating all those Java applications off of that stack too? Hell, NodeJS is backed by Joynet.. does that mean I shouldn't use that platform since I don't plan on hosting with Joyent? I think it's pretty important to at least try to keep the politics out of certain technology decisions. Sometimes it may well become important, sometimes it is less so.
mitchty 13y ago
I think its more that go is a useful language alternative to say using C, or dynamic languages. Recently more and more people are catching on to this. Its like rails in 2007ish in feel to me. Also we can't constantly deal with the NSA, we do have work to get done and things to learn.

tiziano88 13y ago

My understanding is that Go is an open source project, of which the main maintainers are employed full-time by Google specifically in order to improve the language and make it more useful and used within the company itself.

mrschwabe 13y ago
Sure, perhaps it could be said then that Go is similar to that of Android. Which is the prime example of one of Google's 'open' projects that has done wonders for its' industry. Yet given the NSA's surveillance scandal and Google's long history of a close & secretive working relationship with the NSA - today perhaps we should be questioning whether or not we are still comfortable using an Android device. Or programming with Go.
- tiziano88 13y ago
  The answer -- at least for me -- is "yes", as long the "open" component of those projects remains intact.
- turing 13y ago
  Yet given the NSA's surveillance scandal and Google's long history of a close & secretive working relationship with the NSA I'd love to hear evidence of this relationship instead of your speculative fear mongering.
  - mrschwabe 13y ago
    http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/google-nsa-secrecy-upheld/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/google-nsa-secrecy-... http://www.pcworld.com/article/217550/google_watchdog_white_house.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/217550/google_watchdog_white_...
    - cageface 13y ago
      Neither of these articles prove anything like the kind of claims you're making. I'm concerned about PRISM too but I've yet to see any evidence that Google is any more willingly complicit in it than any other US tech giant.
      - coldtea 13y ago
        Never understood the kind of people who wont believe obvious things without first seing a smoking gun on the hands of the culprit and/or a written confession. I guess it's what passes for valid to the politically naive.
        mrschwabe 13y ago
        Indeed. Put it this way, if you suspect a serial killer has taken residence in your neighborhood - are you going to wait around for a 'smoking gun' before making conscious decisions about your interactions with that individual?
        cageface 13y ago
        So what's your alternative if every single one of your neighbors is a serial killer? Like I said, I share your concerns about PRISM but singling out Google seems like losing the forest for a tree when we have abundant evidence that all the US tech giants have been forced to comply with NSA requests.

kailuowang 13y ago

I think it's unnecessary to feel frustrated. "intelligent, free-thinking hackers" can make their judgement on a technology if they are given complete information about it, which is the case here since, as pointed out by the other comment, Go is an open source project.

mrschwabe 13y ago
Good point man. Probably it's always unnecessary to feel frustrated - I guess just with political type stuff it is more easy to succumb to it.

thezilch 13y ago

FUD. What proof are you referring to that Google is "directly, deeply, and intricately involved in said scandal?" Should the industry drop C++ (Microsoft) and Java (Oracle) support or similar (Scala, Python, etc)? AMD and Intel processing? All American companies; completely ludicrous.

mrschwabe 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PRISM_Collection_Details.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PRISM_Collection_Details.j... And there is plenty of other reading material to review regarding Google's history with the NSA (see my other links posted in the nested comment below). Perhaps I should not have said "directly, deeply, and intricately involved in said scandal" in the tone of 'matter of fact' - because it is indeed an opinion, but I'm just drawing what I feel are logical conclusions. IMO Google is the NSA's primary Trojan Horse into the free market. I am in no means declaring this as fact, like I said originally - just wanted to drop my '2 cents' if that's OK.
- thezilch 13y ago
  It goes deeper than that. You are suggesting that intellectual, free thinking and Google can't coexist, or to work AT or WITH Google is to be not intellectual nor free thinking. It's ludicrous to label Google employees and users. You would suggest that Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, Ken Thompson, and those Google employees that publicly deny your FUD [0] can't be intelligent, free-thinking hackers. Crazy. [0] https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream/z13qvvpjivahzpnbo04cghl5dpa2ytui4wg0k https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream/z13qvvpjivahzpnbo04... (Yonatan Zunger [Chief Architect, Google+] denies PRISM wholesale)
  - mrschwabe 13y ago
    I believe you're taking my comment out of context. I shared 'my 2 cents'; an opinion - and did not label Google users or employees. I apologize if you found my comment rude, but I clearly intended it to be taken with a grain of salt.

tptacek 13y ago

For the past ~68 days or so, this is literally the only thing you've talked about here. PRISM NSA PRISM PRISM NSA. Whatever floats your boat, but please stop trying to inject politics onto programming threads.

mrschwabe 13y ago
I appreciate your feedback. In all fairness, before today my last comment was 46 days ago. And before that there are only handful of comments regarding this issue - looks like all within the same week of the NSA news breaking. Anyway, next time perhaps I can simply write an article and submit it as a separate thread; rather than speaking out in the thread itself. Thanks again.
- tptacek 13y ago
  Writing an article is a much, much better idea.

tracker1 13y ago

I really think it should be about the technology first... I have seen a lot of the same sort of opinions hold back adoption of Mono for projects, because .Net itself came out of Microsoft. Java is now owned by Oracle... so does that mean we should get to migrating all those Java applications off of that stack too? Hell, NodeJS is backed by Joynet.. does that mean I shouldn't use that platform since I don't plan on hosting with Joyent? I think it's pretty important to at least try to keep the politics out of certain technology decisions. Sometimes it may well become important, sometimes it is less so.

mitchty 13y ago

I think its more that go is a useful language alternative to say using C, or dynamic languages. Recently more and more people are catching on to this. Its like rails in 2007ish in feel to me. Also we can't constantly deal with the NSA, we do have work to get done and things to learn.