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> (given the rapid rate at which server apps are starting to migrate from Python to Go). Do you have data for this claim or is it a hunch? I've seen this meme

> (given the rapid rate at which server apps are starting to migrate from Python to Go). Do you have data for this claim or is it a hunch? I've seen this meme repeated a lot in HN.

zo1 12y ago
It's a case of "keep repeating it and maybe it'll be true, someday, err, I hope". It's something you often see when people make mental investments into certain paths/things/ideas. And then they have to keep repeating it, both in order to try make it true, and to shield themselves from reality. Sort of like node.js
- jnbiche 12y ago
  Wow, that's so full of wrong assertions and ad hominem I don't even know where to start. First of all, I don't even particularly like Golang as a language, so you're incredibly wrong about my motivations. Secondly, if you don't think Python to Golang adoption is on the rise among SV start-ups, you're living in a bubble. Look up HN Golang posts and count how many of them are from Python backgrounds. This may not represent the entire global Python programming community, but it's without doubt an important and influential segment of it. Finally, I clearly struck some kind of nerve, since my comment is at the top of the page. You may not like my opinion, but it's evidently a common one.
jnbiche 12y ago
Thank you for not asking in a rude and confrontational manner. No, I don't have any solid data, but I do think the majority of people posting about Go on HN have either Python or Ruby backgrounds. I 've also found a lot of Python people in the Rust community (which I personally prefer vastly to Go). People need more performance, particularly multicore performance. Traditional Python supporters can put their head in the sand about this if they want, but these highly-performant new languages have clearly found a niche among Python folks tired of trying to optimize all the time. And yes, there's a fine line between conducting needed optimizations and wasting time prematurely optimizing, but people would clearly rather spend a little more time up front in exchange for a big speedup. The choice is no longer between C and Python -- there's a nice middle ground.
- trentnelson 12y ago
  > People need more performance, particularly multicore performance. Traditional Python supporters can put their head in the sand about this if they want, but these highly-performant new languages have clearly found a niche among Python folks tired of trying to optimize all the time. I agree, the status-quo isn't great at the moment if you want to use Python and optimally exploit all your cores. I actually cover that in a more recent presentation: https://speakerdeck.com/trent/parallelism-and-concurrency-with-python?slide=22 https://speakerdeck.com/trent/parallelism-and-concurrency-wi...
- hcarvalhoalves 12y ago
  > No, I don't have any solid data, but I do think the majority of people posting about Go on HN have either Python or Ruby backgrounds. Right. I find it odd because I don't get why Go is a supposed replacement for Python. Does Go have a framework like Django, a good SQL API/ORM, numerical computing packages, scientific packages, machine learning? This is where I see people using Python the most. > And yes, there's a fine line between conducting needed optimizations and wasting time prematurely optimizing, but people would clearly rather spend a little more time up front in exchange for a big speedup Yeah, fast by default is not only acceptable but desirable, I don't think using a modern compiled language counts as premature optimization. It doesn't look like using Go is a lot more complex/time consuming than Python, you lose some flexibility but win others (e.g., being able to distribute binaries).
  - vertex-four 12y ago
    Go is vaguely Pythonic (extensive stdlib, and generally adheres to the Zen of Python). Even if there's not much in terms of frameworks, it's great for replacing small parts of a server that have to handle a lot of load. A lot of people have existing Python servers that grew into being performance hotspots. It fits into the sort of niche that node.js does. Personally, I'm not keen on it - I find that roughly 2/3rds of my code end up being error handling - and hope Rust eventually takes off.
Shish2k 12y ago
In my sample size of one, I've been using python for new projects almost exclusively for a few years (still maintaining a bunch of other legacy code) - but now in cases where Go is suitable (things where I don't need Python's enormous and well-versioned third party library ecosystem) I've been switching to it. In general, it feels like Python and C had a baby and it inherited the best of both, so I can see myself pushing for it a lot more in future.

> (given the rapid rate at which server apps are starting to migrate from Python to Go). Do you have data for this claim or is it a hunch? I've seen this meme repeated a lot in HN.

zo1 12y ago

It's a case of "keep repeating it and maybe it'll be true, someday, err, I hope". It's something you often see when people make mental investments into certain paths/things/ideas. And then they have to keep repeating it, both in order to try make it true, and to shield themselves from reality. Sort of like node.js

jnbiche 12y ago
Wow, that's so full of wrong assertions and ad hominem I don't even know where to start. First of all, I don't even particularly like Golang as a language, so you're incredibly wrong about my motivations. Secondly, if you don't think Python to Golang adoption is on the rise among SV start-ups, you're living in a bubble. Look up HN Golang posts and count how many of them are from Python backgrounds. This may not represent the entire global Python programming community, but it's without doubt an important and influential segment of it. Finally, I clearly struck some kind of nerve, since my comment is at the top of the page. You may not like my opinion, but it's evidently a common one.

jnbiche 12y ago

Thank you for not asking in a rude and confrontational manner. No, I don't have any solid data, but I do think the majority of people posting about Go on HN have either Python or Ruby backgrounds. I 've also found a lot of Python people in the Rust community (which I personally prefer vastly to Go). People need more performance, particularly multicore performance. Traditional Python supporters can put their head in the sand about this if they want, but these highly-performant new languages have clearly found a niche among Python folks tired of trying to optimize all the time. And yes, there's a fine line between conducting needed optimizations and wasting time prematurely optimizing, but people would clearly rather spend a little more time up front in exchange for a big speedup. The choice is no longer between C and Python -- there's a nice middle ground.

trentnelson 12y ago
> People need more performance, particularly multicore performance. Traditional Python supporters can put their head in the sand about this if they want, but these highly-performant new languages have clearly found a niche among Python folks tired of trying to optimize all the time. I agree, the status-quo isn't great at the moment if you want to use Python and optimally exploit all your cores. I actually cover that in a more recent presentation: https://speakerdeck.com/trent/parallelism-and-concurrency-with-python?slide=22 https://speakerdeck.com/trent/parallelism-and-concurrency-wi...
hcarvalhoalves 12y ago
> No, I don't have any solid data, but I do think the majority of people posting about Go on HN have either Python or Ruby backgrounds. Right. I find it odd because I don't get why Go is a supposed replacement for Python. Does Go have a framework like Django, a good SQL API/ORM, numerical computing packages, scientific packages, machine learning? This is where I see people using Python the most. > And yes, there's a fine line between conducting needed optimizations and wasting time prematurely optimizing, but people would clearly rather spend a little more time up front in exchange for a big speedup Yeah, fast by default is not only acceptable but desirable, I don't think using a modern compiled language counts as premature optimization. It doesn't look like using Go is a lot more complex/time consuming than Python, you lose some flexibility but win others (e.g., being able to distribute binaries).
- vertex-four 12y ago
  Go is vaguely Pythonic (extensive stdlib, and generally adheres to the Zen of Python). Even if there's not much in terms of frameworks, it's great for replacing small parts of a server that have to handle a lot of load. A lot of people have existing Python servers that grew into being performance hotspots. It fits into the sort of niche that node.js does. Personally, I'm not keen on it - I find that roughly 2/3rds of my code end up being error handling - and hope Rust eventually takes off.

Shish2k 12y ago

In my sample size of one, I've been using python for new projects almost exclusively for a few years (still maintaining a bunch of other legacy code) - but now in cases where Go is suitable (things where I don't need Python's enormous and well-versioned third party library ecosystem) I've been switching to it. In general, it feels like Python and C had a baby and it inherited the best of both, so I can see myself pushing for it a lot more in future.