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I was worried when I saw "I decided to write a little Rust and, because everyone in my world is seems swoony over it, Go." That's a pretty bad reason for using

I was worried when I saw "I decided to write a little Rust and, because everyone in my world is seems swoony over it, Go." That's a pretty bad reason for using a language and usually leads to some pretty ridiculous criticism. This post was not that, I think they nailed a lot of the good and bad things about Go, in fact, they could have been a lot more harsh. There is a depth lacking in just checking out a language in this way though as there's no evaluation of some of the larger reasons Go exists, like concurrency and and fast compile times. Then again, most people probably don't even need/care about these.

ryandvm 12y ago
Hmm. Learning a language/framework that is exploding in popularity is probably one of the best things a dev can do to stay relevant (read: employed). Hell, very few of us would be using Javascript if it weren't for it's ubiquity/community/popularity. I sure as hell am not using it because it's a well designed language.
- codezero 12y ago
  I agree that it's great to learn a language, I was thinking of this as more of an exercise to generate a good post, but it's probably more reasonable to assume he really wanted to learn Go :P
- bad_user 12y ago
  Quite the contrary, learning a language because it is exploding in popularity is a nice way to ensure that you'll end up being abused, poorly paid and irrelevant. You can't possibly find a worse reason for learning a new language. On Javascript you're missing the causality. Some people are learning Javascript because it is popular of course, because they've read on some forum that learning popular things gets them hired, but those people are totally uninteresting in the pool of developers that learned Javascript because they had shit to do and things to build and Javascript was the answer. There's a big difference between learning X because you want to make your job easier, because you want to build things in a new way, because you want exposure to new ways of thinking, because there isn't an alternative to what you're trying to do, etc... and learning X because that's fashionable. In the former case, it's pretty much a gamble but you might actually get something out of it. In the later case all you're earning is the ability to slap another keyword on a resume that only mediocre HR people care about, being actually a time waist as it's keeping you from learning things that might actually be of interest for the things you're trying to accomplish (other than getting a shitty job of course). Just as people that learned PHP or Java back in the day found out, learning for the sake of getting a job is a sure way to land you a shitty and boring job in which you are replaceable cog. Managers love popular languages and frameworks, of course they do. And the interesting jobs that are out there, that make people happy and that pay well - well, let me tell you, those companies aren't looking for keywords on your resume, but for things that you've actually built. And after some years from now, when you'll be over 40, you'll find yourself either a manager that does LinkedIn searches for keywords, or an obsolete developer that can't find a job because everything you've learned is obsolete and you waisted your time in learning syntax, instead of learning new abstractions, algorithms and mathematics - you know, stuff that never gets old.
  - ChrisGaudreau 12y ago
    Personally, I like to learn any language, regardless of how popular it is. It's just fun.
    - holoway 12y ago
      Yeah, I was doing this for fun. I'm pretty secure in my day job. :)
  - bjz_ 12y ago
    > Quite the contrary, learning a language because it is exploding in popularity is a nice way to ensure that you'll end up being abused, poorly paid and irrelevant. Because I had the good fortune of starting with Rust early, I now have several foundational libraries under my belt in the Rust ecosystem. This has certainly been of great interest in interviews, and might just lead to me landing a pretty 'hip' internship over the Australian summer. Of course it won't be in Rust, but it's better than being at a hum-drum corporate placement. Being a pioneer definitely sets you apart from other candidates, and also culls the pack of potential employers to those that value curiosity and initiative, and actually care about exploring new ideas.
  - LunaSea 12y ago
    By learning new programming languages or frameworks you stand out from the crowd. Guess who's going to get a job: A) The fool who just learned JavaScript and Angular.js B) The university student who only knows Java The answer will be (A) every single time because companies don't have the time to train people for months.
    - codezero 12y ago
      This hasn't been my experience in practice but I guess it depends on what kinds of companies you've worked with. Everywhere I've worked, they hire engineers based on a lot of factors, and it has been more often the case that they'd go for someone who knows a different stack really well, than someone who knows all the newest stacks.
    - 12y ago
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
melling 12y ago
I'm under the impression that Rust isn't near done and ready for production use. Go has been ready for a couple years. Rust could be 10 times better but I'm not going to touch it until they ship 1.0.
- andolanra 12y ago
  The plan is to release 1.0 around the end of the year. In that sense, Rust isn't done, but it is near done.
  - TheHydroImpulse 12y ago
    Unlike other languages that are "done" at 1.0, Rust will still be improving and iterating. 1.0 defines a backwards-compatible release that you can depend on but the language won't be "done". "It’s important to be clear about what we mean by stable. We don’t mean that Rust will stop evolving. We will release new versions of Rust on a regular, frequent basis, and we hope that people will upgrade just as regularly. But for that to happen, those upgrades need to be painless." [0] [0]: http://blog.rust-lang.org/2014/10/30/Stability.html http://blog.rust-lang.org/2014/10/30/Stability.html
    - melling 12y ago
      Go updates twice a year, which is actually a lot. I don't think a release every 6 weeks for Rust is a good idea. That'll never fly for enterprise software. Heck, for some companies the Java upgrade cycle is too fast.
      - pjmlp 12y ago
        At Java ONE MongoDB developers mentioned they have clients still running on Java 5, thus they cannot fully embrace Java 8 for the time being.
    - NateDad 12y ago
      The stability guarantee given by rust is what scares me the most about starting up with it. "with a minimum of hassle" is really squishy language that is not at all comforting. Compared to the Go 1.0 promise: Your code will not break, period.

ryandvm 12y ago

Hmm. Learning a language/framework that is exploding in popularity is probably one of the best things a dev can do to stay relevant (read: employed). Hell, very few of us would be using Javascript if it weren't for it's ubiquity/community/popularity. I sure as hell am not using it because it's a well designed language.

codezero 12y ago
I agree that it's great to learn a language, I was thinking of this as more of an exercise to generate a good post, but it's probably more reasonable to assume he really wanted to learn Go :P
bad_user 12y ago
Quite the contrary, learning a language because it is exploding in popularity is a nice way to ensure that you'll end up being abused, poorly paid and irrelevant. You can't possibly find a worse reason for learning a new language. On Javascript you're missing the causality. Some people are learning Javascript because it is popular of course, because they've read on some forum that learning popular things gets them hired, but those people are totally uninteresting in the pool of developers that learned Javascript because they had shit to do and things to build and Javascript was the answer. There's a big difference between learning X because you want to make your job easier, because you want to build things in a new way, because you want exposure to new ways of thinking, because there isn't an alternative to what you're trying to do, etc... and learning X because that's fashionable. In the former case, it's pretty much a gamble but you might actually get something out of it. In the later case all you're earning is the ability to slap another keyword on a resume that only mediocre HR people care about, being actually a time waist as it's keeping you from learning things that might actually be of interest for the things you're trying to accomplish (other than getting a shitty job of course). Just as people that learned PHP or Java back in the day found out, learning for the sake of getting a job is a sure way to land you a shitty and boring job in which you are replaceable cog. Managers love popular languages and frameworks, of course they do. And the interesting jobs that are out there, that make people happy and that pay well - well, let me tell you, those companies aren't looking for keywords on your resume, but for things that you've actually built. And after some years from now, when you'll be over 40, you'll find yourself either a manager that does LinkedIn searches for keywords, or an obsolete developer that can't find a job because everything you've learned is obsolete and you waisted your time in learning syntax, instead of learning new abstractions, algorithms and mathematics - you know, stuff that never gets old.
- ChrisGaudreau 12y ago
  Personally, I like to learn any language, regardless of how popular it is. It's just fun.
  - holoway 12y ago
    Yeah, I was doing this for fun. I'm pretty secure in my day job. :)
- bjz_ 12y ago
  > Quite the contrary, learning a language because it is exploding in popularity is a nice way to ensure that you'll end up being abused, poorly paid and irrelevant. Because I had the good fortune of starting with Rust early, I now have several foundational libraries under my belt in the Rust ecosystem. This has certainly been of great interest in interviews, and might just lead to me landing a pretty 'hip' internship over the Australian summer. Of course it won't be in Rust, but it's better than being at a hum-drum corporate placement. Being a pioneer definitely sets you apart from other candidates, and also culls the pack of potential employers to those that value curiosity and initiative, and actually care about exploring new ideas.
- LunaSea 12y ago
  By learning new programming languages or frameworks you stand out from the crowd. Guess who's going to get a job: A) The fool who just learned JavaScript and Angular.js B) The university student who only knows Java The answer will be (A) every single time because companies don't have the time to train people for months.
  - codezero 12y ago
    This hasn't been my experience in practice but I guess it depends on what kinds of companies you've worked with. Everywhere I've worked, they hire engineers based on a lot of factors, and it has been more often the case that they'd go for someone who knows a different stack really well, than someone who knows all the newest stacks.
  - 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

melling 12y ago

I'm under the impression that Rust isn't near done and ready for production use. Go has been ready for a couple years. Rust could be 10 times better but I'm not going to touch it until they ship 1.0.

andolanra 12y ago
The plan is to release 1.0 around the end of the year. In that sense, Rust isn't done, but it is near done.
- TheHydroImpulse 12y ago
  Unlike other languages that are "done" at 1.0, Rust will still be improving and iterating. 1.0 defines a backwards-compatible release that you can depend on but the language won't be "done". "It’s important to be clear about what we mean by stable. We don’t mean that Rust will stop evolving. We will release new versions of Rust on a regular, frequent basis, and we hope that people will upgrade just as regularly. But for that to happen, those upgrades need to be painless." [0] [0]: http://blog.rust-lang.org/2014/10/30/Stability.html http://blog.rust-lang.org/2014/10/30/Stability.html
  - melling 12y ago
    Go updates twice a year, which is actually a lot. I don't think a release every 6 weeks for Rust is a good idea. That'll never fly for enterprise software. Heck, for some companies the Java upgrade cycle is too fast.
    - pjmlp 12y ago
      At Java ONE MongoDB developers mentioned they have clients still running on Java 5, thus they cannot fully embrace Java 8 for the time being.
  - NateDad 12y ago
    The stability guarantee given by rust is what scares me the most about starting up with it. "with a minimum of hassle" is really squishy language that is not at all comforting. Compared to the Go 1.0 promise: Your code will not break, period.