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It was in response mainly to: > Go is that _slim_, and that's good! Guaranteed you'll find use for Go in one system or the other... I'm all for learning new p

It was in response mainly to: > Go is that _slim_, and that's good! Guaranteed you'll find use for Go in one system or the other... I'm all for learning new programming languages, but if you're going to learn a new programming language, why not use one that has new ideas?

ckarmann 13y ago
Learning languages for their new ideas is fine, but there are other reasons you might want to learn a language. For example, because it is a good language for the specific kind of program that you want to write. Go hits some sweet spot, apparently, since some people are happier using it than anything else they had tried. If no "new ideas" are going to help them, why should they chose more "innovative" languages instead of Go?
bsg75 13y ago
Go does not have a lot of new features, but mostly a specific collection of convenient ones (static compilation, GC, etc.) Not sure how many new languages have truly new features, vs. how many are improvements in productivity (human and machine). My point is that generics are not a new idea either, and plenty of languages offer them. Go is not meant (anymore) to replace C/C++/Java or even Rust. It will never have all the features of those, and probably should not. But it seems impossible to have a HN discussion on Golang without part of the thread getting hijacked with "But generics!!!" This make no more sense to me than considering other languages incomplete because they don't generate static binaries.
- masklinn 13y ago
  > But it seems impossible to have a HN discussion on Golang without part of the thread getting hijacked with "But generics!!!" Surely the exact same criticism could be leveraged at go proponents pointing out the exact same features they love every time, should discussions of Go simply stop until the next major release, and only new features (if any) be discussable?
  - bsg75 13y ago
    Note my point in that line was not about criticism, but about thread hijacking.
  - burntsushi 13y ago
    > Surely the exact same criticism could be leveraged at go proponents pointing out the exact same features they love every time This thread was started by someone complaining about lack of generics. > should discussions of Go simply stop until the next major release, and only new features (if any) be discussable? Why? Because there's no reasonable middle ground between "don't ever talk about Go until there's a release" and "hijack every thread about Go"?
genwin 13y ago
Because it's much faster than other languages at its difficulty level. Which can save a lot of money.

ckarmann 13y ago

Learning languages for their new ideas is fine, but there are other reasons you might want to learn a language. For example, because it is a good language for the specific kind of program that you want to write. Go hits some sweet spot, apparently, since some people are happier using it than anything else they had tried. If no "new ideas" are going to help them, why should they chose more "innovative" languages instead of Go?

bsg75 13y ago

Go does not have a lot of new features, but mostly a specific collection of convenient ones (static compilation, GC, etc.) Not sure how many new languages have truly new features, vs. how many are improvements in productivity (human and machine). My point is that generics are not a new idea either, and plenty of languages offer them. Go is not meant (anymore) to replace C/C++/Java or even Rust. It will never have all the features of those, and probably should not. But it seems impossible to have a HN discussion on Golang without part of the thread getting hijacked with "But generics!!!" This make no more sense to me than considering other languages incomplete because they don't generate static binaries.

masklinn 13y ago
> But it seems impossible to have a HN discussion on Golang without part of the thread getting hijacked with "But generics!!!" Surely the exact same criticism could be leveraged at go proponents pointing out the exact same features they love every time, should discussions of Go simply stop until the next major release, and only new features (if any) be discussable?
- bsg75 13y ago
  Note my point in that line was not about criticism, but about thread hijacking.
- burntsushi 13y ago
  > Surely the exact same criticism could be leveraged at go proponents pointing out the exact same features they love every time This thread was started by someone complaining about lack of generics. > should discussions of Go simply stop until the next major release, and only new features (if any) be discussable? Why? Because there's no reasonable middle ground between "don't ever talk about Go until there's a release" and "hijack every thread about Go"?

genwin 13y ago

Because it's much faster than other languages at its difficulty level. Which can save a lot of money.