9 ms·

Go is designed to be a small, simple language, it's not hard to release that. If you want a fully featured type system, go program in Ocaml, Haskell or another

Go is designed to be a small, simple language, it's not hard to release that. If you want a fully featured type system, go program in Ocaml, Haskell or another 'big' language.

TylerE 13y ago
That falls flat on it's face as a cop out when you look at a language like nimrod that manages to be practically as simple as go while including full generics. Oh, it's faster too. http://nimrod-lang.org/tut2.html#generics http://nimrod-lang.org/tut2.html#generics
- rdtsc 13y ago
  Nimrod is a gem. Just needs a big company to host release parties and sponsor it. I am convinced, a good part of Go's popularity is Google. As a language it is ok. Has good stuff in it. Quite often the argument for adoption is "Google is behind it, and it is becoming really popular". Which, is not completely irrational -- it is nice to have a large company throwing away perhaps years of quality full-time dev work at a language.
  - pjmlp 13y ago
    Quite true. I doubt Go would be as talked here if it wasn't for Google. Just check how far Go's ancestors (Alef/Limbo) went.
    - ithkuil 13y ago
      I guess this also means that Go wouldn't have the success it has if it wasn't built and used by a group of engineers who are used to the pitfalls of complexity and value tools that help you to get the job done and yet produce maintainable code. This also means that it's not a good fit for everybody. It's certainly less exciting than most of the things that you find around; that's ok, that's the point. Less focus on the language, less focus on the magic and more focus on what you do with it.
      - pjmlp 13y ago
        The gold question is, would anyone care if the same engineers would be doing this work in another company?
        ithkuil 13y ago
        I believe it would, if the other company obeys to this constrains: * has a very large number of top-notch/rock star engineers and this fact is widely publicised * has a history of producing products with a very good quality (at least in the area under discussion, in this case reliability, performance and scalability) * has been on the market and successful for a long period of time * engineer opinion within the company carries weight and rules are not blindly dictated from above. There are many other good companies, hiring extremely bright people. However, it's interesting to learn about what arises from the requirements of a company with the above listed characteristics. I'm sure some people will just cargo cult everything googly, but there are also those who have a genuine interest and know when to apply those things if they make sense for them.
        pjmlp 13y ago
        You just described Google by other words.
        twic 13y ago
        Or Sun Microsystems in 1996.
        ithkuil 13y ago
        Or Facebook in a few years?
  - xkarga00 13y ago
    How come Google plays a good part of Go's popularity while the language per se is open-sourced and a fair amount of its contributors don't relate to Google at all? If you had observed what's happening around Go and Google since the language was released, you would have noticed that everything that happens inside Google is due to its creators motivation to push the language into the company rather than Google being "behind it". Dart on the other hand is backed by Google for good. Go? Except Google App Engine, i don't see it.
    - twic 13y ago
      Quite. The idea that Google is "behind" Go is mistaken. The situation is that some people inside Google, some of them quite well-known and influential, are behind Go. There are also people not inside Google who are behind Go, and people who are inside Google who aren't keen on Go. Therefore, Go is certainly not in the same position as things like Chrome or Android, where the company as a whole has a stake in their success.
      - DennisP 13y ago
        Well they do support Go on App Engine.
        xkarga00 13y ago
        They do support Go for Glassware development, too, but these are just exceptions. If you search for jobs in Google you are not going to find any vacancy requiring Go programming, while you can find such vacancies in companies like Soundcloud, Cloudfare, Songkick, or Reuters. Also i would like to see Go natively used for Android development. Then i would probably reconsider the "behind it" statement.
        rdtsc 13y ago
        The fact that Google blogs about rewriting some of it services in Go internally and it employs full time Go primary creators is worth 100x more than Soundcloud, Cloudfare and Songkick combined job boards.
  - sharprazor 13y ago
    Nimrod and Rust both look good. Currently leaning towards Rust due to wider backing and support.
lucian1900 13y ago
Both ML and Haskell are really tiny languages syntactically and have very simple core type systems. Go has both crappy syntax (excusable for appealing to C programmers) and a pathetic type system.
namelezz 13y ago
Maybe Go is a small and simple language now because it's still missing some features that potentially make it a complicated language. :)

Go is designed to be a small, simple language, it's not hard to release that. If you want a fully featured type system, go program in Ocaml, Haskell or another 'big' language.

TylerE 13y ago

That falls flat on it's face as a cop out when you look at a language like nimrod that manages to be practically as simple as go while including full generics. Oh, it's faster too. http://nimrod-lang.org/tut2.html#generics http://nimrod-lang.org/tut2.html#generics

rdtsc 13y ago
Nimrod is a gem. Just needs a big company to host release parties and sponsor it. I am convinced, a good part of Go's popularity is Google. As a language it is ok. Has good stuff in it. Quite often the argument for adoption is "Google is behind it, and it is becoming really popular". Which, is not completely irrational -- it is nice to have a large company throwing away perhaps years of quality full-time dev work at a language.
- pjmlp 13y ago
  Quite true. I doubt Go would be as talked here if it wasn't for Google. Just check how far Go's ancestors (Alef/Limbo) went.
  - ithkuil 13y ago
    I guess this also means that Go wouldn't have the success it has if it wasn't built and used by a group of engineers who are used to the pitfalls of complexity and value tools that help you to get the job done and yet produce maintainable code. This also means that it's not a good fit for everybody. It's certainly less exciting than most of the things that you find around; that's ok, that's the point. Less focus on the language, less focus on the magic and more focus on what you do with it.
    - pjmlp 13y ago
      The gold question is, would anyone care if the same engineers would be doing this work in another company?
      - ithkuil 13y ago
        I believe it would, if the other company obeys to this constrains: * has a very large number of top-notch/rock star engineers and this fact is widely publicised * has a history of producing products with a very good quality (at least in the area under discussion, in this case reliability, performance and scalability) * has been on the market and successful for a long period of time * engineer opinion within the company carries weight and rules are not blindly dictated from above. There are many other good companies, hiring extremely bright people. However, it's interesting to learn about what arises from the requirements of a company with the above listed characteristics. I'm sure some people will just cargo cult everything googly, but there are also those who have a genuine interest and know when to apply those things if they make sense for them.
        pjmlp 13y ago
        You just described Google by other words.
        twic 13y ago
        Or Sun Microsystems in 1996.
        ithkuil 13y ago
        Or Facebook in a few years?
- xkarga00 13y ago
  How come Google plays a good part of Go's popularity while the language per se is open-sourced and a fair amount of its contributors don't relate to Google at all? If you had observed what's happening around Go and Google since the language was released, you would have noticed that everything that happens inside Google is due to its creators motivation to push the language into the company rather than Google being "behind it". Dart on the other hand is backed by Google for good. Go? Except Google App Engine, i don't see it.
  - twic 13y ago
    Quite. The idea that Google is "behind" Go is mistaken. The situation is that some people inside Google, some of them quite well-known and influential, are behind Go. There are also people not inside Google who are behind Go, and people who are inside Google who aren't keen on Go. Therefore, Go is certainly not in the same position as things like Chrome or Android, where the company as a whole has a stake in their success.
    - DennisP 13y ago
      Well they do support Go on App Engine.
      - xkarga00 13y ago
        They do support Go for Glassware development, too, but these are just exceptions. If you search for jobs in Google you are not going to find any vacancy requiring Go programming, while you can find such vacancies in companies like Soundcloud, Cloudfare, Songkick, or Reuters. Also i would like to see Go natively used for Android development. Then i would probably reconsider the "behind it" statement.
        rdtsc 13y ago
        The fact that Google blogs about rewriting some of it services in Go internally and it employs full time Go primary creators is worth 100x more than Soundcloud, Cloudfare and Songkick combined job boards.
- sharprazor 13y ago
  Nimrod and Rust both look good. Currently leaning towards Rust due to wider backing and support.

lucian1900 13y ago

Both ML and Haskell are really tiny languages syntactically and have very simple core type systems. Go has both crappy syntax (excusable for appealing to C programmers) and a pathetic type system.

namelezz 13y ago

Maybe Go is a small and simple language now because it's still missing some features that potentially make it a complicated language. :)