3 ms·

The explanation of why I like Go is best found in: "Less is exponentially more": http://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2012/06/less-is-exponentially-more.html http:

The explanation of why I like Go is best found in: "Less is exponentially more": http://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2012/06/less-is-exponentially-more.html http://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2012/06/less-is-exponentia...

nostrademons 13y ago
Somewhat ironically, that is exactly the same philosophy that was embodied in Java when it came out, and Java has grown so that it's now mentioned in the same breath as C++ when compared to Go. I think what happens in all languages - indeed, in all engineering projects - is that people start using them, and then their design collides with the real world, and people start asking for new features to make their own lives better, and each additional feature makes the language incrementally better without costing much. But when this has been going on for 20 years, you have an accretion of features that don't quite hang together and collectively are a royal pain to deal with. Eventually enough folks get fed up with this state that a new language can gain critical mass, and the cycle starts over again. The only languages immune to this are ones that explicitly reject certain use-cases as out-of-scope, and can design accordingly. C, for example, remains a great little language because it doesn't pretend to shield you from the dangers of the hardware, and so it can remain both fast and simple because everyone who wants it to scale up to big complicated applications reaches for C++ or Java instead. Python remains great as long as you remember that it's a scripting language and don't pretend that it'll be fast or maintainable beyond a certain size.
- danieldk 13y ago
  But when this has been going on for 20 years, you have an accretion of features that don't quite hang together and collectively are a royal pain to deal with. Eventually enough folks get fed up with this state that a new language can gain critical mass, and the cycle starts over again. I agree, but Java the language hasn't become much more complicated. In fact, it's development has been quite glacial, one of the reasons that some JVM-minded people switch to Scala. Probably the larger problem is that Java (to the Python/Ruby and now Go crowd) became associated with applets and big and ugly frameworks that require heaps of XML. However, Java the language doesn't differ all that much from Go. Java is better in some respects (generics, checked exceptions) and Go is nicer in some respects (closures). However, Java has an insanely great runtime (JVM) that can be fully instrumented, supports hot code swapping (some natively, DCEVM, JRebel). It also has a zillion great libraries, good IDEs, great web frameworks (that don't require writing XML), etc. Go will be popular in start ups, etc. Some people will take it into big corps (as happened with Python and Ruby). But to be used widely in the industry, it needs everything and more than the JVM or .NET offer.
- pjmlp 13y ago
  C is anything but simple, given the amount of undefined behavior it has.

nostrademons 13y ago

Somewhat ironically, that is exactly the same philosophy that was embodied in Java when it came out, and Java has grown so that it's now mentioned in the same breath as C++ when compared to Go. I think what happens in all languages - indeed, in all engineering projects - is that people start using them, and then their design collides with the real world, and people start asking for new features to make their own lives better, and each additional feature makes the language incrementally better without costing much. But when this has been going on for 20 years, you have an accretion of features that don't quite hang together and collectively are a royal pain to deal with. Eventually enough folks get fed up with this state that a new language can gain critical mass, and the cycle starts over again. The only languages immune to this are ones that explicitly reject certain use-cases as out-of-scope, and can design accordingly. C, for example, remains a great little language because it doesn't pretend to shield you from the dangers of the hardware, and so it can remain both fast and simple because everyone who wants it to scale up to big complicated applications reaches for C++ or Java instead. Python remains great as long as you remember that it's a scripting language and don't pretend that it'll be fast or maintainable beyond a certain size.

danieldk 13y ago
But when this has been going on for 20 years, you have an accretion of features that don't quite hang together and collectively are a royal pain to deal with. Eventually enough folks get fed up with this state that a new language can gain critical mass, and the cycle starts over again. I agree, but Java the language hasn't become much more complicated. In fact, it's development has been quite glacial, one of the reasons that some JVM-minded people switch to Scala. Probably the larger problem is that Java (to the Python/Ruby and now Go crowd) became associated with applets and big and ugly frameworks that require heaps of XML. However, Java the language doesn't differ all that much from Go. Java is better in some respects (generics, checked exceptions) and Go is nicer in some respects (closures). However, Java has an insanely great runtime (JVM) that can be fully instrumented, supports hot code swapping (some natively, DCEVM, JRebel). It also has a zillion great libraries, good IDEs, great web frameworks (that don't require writing XML), etc. Go will be popular in start ups, etc. Some people will take it into big corps (as happened with Python and Ruby). But to be used widely in the industry, it needs everything and more than the JVM or .NET offer.
pjmlp 13y ago
C is anything but simple, given the amount of undefined behavior it has.