4 ms·

Well, let's also not forget that a big factor in Go's success is Google. Google has much deeper pockets than Mozilla to build a language and infrastructure.

by Pxtl 12y ago

danieldk 12y ago
But it's not as if they threw a massive amount of manpower or budget at it. I think Go succeeded more by association (to Google) and the fact that it hits a sweet spot for many people - it produces native code, but does not have the complexity of C++ or the unsafety of C. I have written a fair bit of Go code. But I will switch to Rust without a second though once the ecosystem takes of. The lack of simple things like generics or algebraic data types in Go is jarring.
kjksf 12y ago
This meme really should die. It has never been true so there's nothing to forget. The number of full-time Rust people paid by Mozilla is roughly the same as number of Go people paid by Google. Mozilla is a wealthy company and while Google is even more wealthy, it doesn't mean that it spends all its money on Go. Both v8 and Dart are staffed with more people and Dart is not taking off the way Go is. People are trying to rationalize away the explosive popularity of Go with all sorts explanations, the "it's all because it's Google" being one of them. The simple explanation is: people use Go because it's a good language. That's the big factor in Go's success.
- threeseed 12y ago
  But it's true. Google's association is a big factor in its success. It's not the only reason nor likely the biggest now but it was important at least at the beginning. The fact is that every week we hear about new programming languages. Almost none of them end up being widely used. Having someone like Google, Mozilla, Apple, Microsoft etc behind it makes a big difference.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - Animats 12y ago
    It's not so much that Google promotes Go. It's that Google uses Go internally for production code. Thus, the compiler, and the library modules used for web-type services, are thoroughly exercised, and used by in-house people who can insist that bugs be fixed quickly. It took Go far fewer years to achieve stable libraries than, say, Python.
- aikah 12y ago
  > Go because it's a good language. Go fits a niche and is good enough, for now. But Go as a language is seriously flawed, and its flaws will become more and more obvious as the language gets more popular. People can certainly understand Go made the choice of "minimalism". But minimalism doesn't mean the language shouldn't have features people really need. The infamous "You don't need that in Go" sentence will not fly that much longer,especially given how the Go team and community tries to answer Go short comings. The biggest insult to intelligence is that "go generate" feature.It's just embarrassing. Go for me is a missed opportunity. I still like it but I keep a close eye on alternatives that don't have their core library riddled with "interface{}" like types. Because there is a need for something simpler and safer than C,that is easily accessible to "script kiddies",that is fast,that has easy concurrency, that compiles to machine code,that has type safety,that isn't tied to windows, in order for people to produce executables that can easily be distributed or concurrent servers. Whatever language succeeds in that niche will be the biggest language of the next 10/20 years. Mark my words.
  - zzzcpan 12y ago
    > that has type safety Actually, there is no need for that. Type safety has nothing to do with software being more reliable or more secure. There is, however, a need in language creators, who understand that large standard library with static binaries and cross compilation are super important in a fast moving world where many different operating systems live together on many different architectures.
    - Jweb_Guru 12y ago
      > Type safety has nothing to do with software being more reliable or more secure. It is true that type safety doesn't necessarily mean that software is more reliable and secure (it depends on the type system, the semantics of the language, and a host of other things), but saying it has "nothing" to do with it is incorrect. In particular, preventing undefined behavior certainly has an effect on security, whether or not it's through a static type system. As pcwalton has mentioned on several occasions, something like 50% of critical CVEs in Firefox exploited attack vectors that would have been prevented by Rust's type system.
- vdaniuk 12y ago
  Let's make a small amendment to your simple statement. >The simple explanation is: people use Javascript because it's a good language. That's the big factor in Javascript's success. >The simple explanation is: people use PHP because it's a good language. That's the big factor in PHP's success. Doesn't feel right, does it? Google and corporate sponsors are incredibly important in building the ecosystem of programming language. Traction may be the single major defining characteristic of language success and one can certainly buy traction with money and influence.
peterfirefly 12y ago
The biggest factor probably was that Rob Pike had basically been prototyping the language for 20 years. (But google's name certainly helped.)
- vanderZwan 12y ago
  Not to take anything away from your comment on this being a language that has been brewing for years, but people really should give Robert Griesemer more credit for his influence on the language design. I know he's the least publically visible of the three, but IIRC godoc and gofmt are mostly his babies. After getting used to those I think I miss them more in other languages than I miss the concurrency.
  - Supermighty 12y ago
    Well said. Rob Pike is explicit about early Go development; everything that went into Go was agreed upon by Robert, Ken, and Rob. If all three didn't agree it didn't go in.

Well, let's also not forget that a big factor in Go's success is Google. Google has much deeper pockets than Mozilla to build a language and infrastructure.

by Pxtl 12y ago

Well, let's also not forget that a big factor in Go's success is Google. Google has much deeper pockets than Mozilla to build a language and infrastructure.

danieldk 12y ago

But it's not as if they threw a massive amount of manpower or budget at it. I think Go succeeded more by association (to Google) and the fact that it hits a sweet spot for many people - it produces native code, but does not have the complexity of C++ or the unsafety of C. I have written a fair bit of Go code. But I will switch to Rust without a second though once the ecosystem takes of. The lack of simple things like generics or algebraic data types in Go is jarring.

kjksf 12y ago

This meme really should die. It has never been true so there's nothing to forget. The number of full-time Rust people paid by Mozilla is roughly the same as number of Go people paid by Google. Mozilla is a wealthy company and while Google is even more wealthy, it doesn't mean that it spends all its money on Go. Both v8 and Dart are staffed with more people and Dart is not taking off the way Go is. People are trying to rationalize away the explosive popularity of Go with all sorts explanations, the "it's all because it's Google" being one of them. The simple explanation is: people use Go because it's a good language. That's the big factor in Go's success.

threeseed 12y ago
But it's true. Google's association is a big factor in its success. It's not the only reason nor likely the biggest now but it was important at least at the beginning. The fact is that every week we hear about new programming languages. Almost none of them end up being widely used. Having someone like Google, Mozilla, Apple, Microsoft etc behind it makes a big difference.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- Animats 12y ago
  It's not so much that Google promotes Go. It's that Google uses Go internally for production code. Thus, the compiler, and the library modules used for web-type services, are thoroughly exercised, and used by in-house people who can insist that bugs be fixed quickly. It took Go far fewer years to achieve stable libraries than, say, Python.
aikah 12y ago
> Go because it's a good language. Go fits a niche and is good enough, for now. But Go as a language is seriously flawed, and its flaws will become more and more obvious as the language gets more popular. People can certainly understand Go made the choice of "minimalism". But minimalism doesn't mean the language shouldn't have features people really need. The infamous "You don't need that in Go" sentence will not fly that much longer,especially given how the Go team and community tries to answer Go short comings. The biggest insult to intelligence is that "go generate" feature.It's just embarrassing. Go for me is a missed opportunity. I still like it but I keep a close eye on alternatives that don't have their core library riddled with "interface{}" like types. Because there is a need for something simpler and safer than C,that is easily accessible to "script kiddies",that is fast,that has easy concurrency, that compiles to machine code,that has type safety,that isn't tied to windows, in order for people to produce executables that can easily be distributed or concurrent servers. Whatever language succeeds in that niche will be the biggest language of the next 10/20 years. Mark my words.
- zzzcpan 12y ago
  > that has type safety Actually, there is no need for that. Type safety has nothing to do with software being more reliable or more secure. There is, however, a need in language creators, who understand that large standard library with static binaries and cross compilation are super important in a fast moving world where many different operating systems live together on many different architectures.
  - Jweb_Guru 12y ago
    > Type safety has nothing to do with software being more reliable or more secure. It is true that type safety doesn't necessarily mean that software is more reliable and secure (it depends on the type system, the semantics of the language, and a host of other things), but saying it has "nothing" to do with it is incorrect. In particular, preventing undefined behavior certainly has an effect on security, whether or not it's through a static type system. As pcwalton has mentioned on several occasions, something like 50% of critical CVEs in Firefox exploited attack vectors that would have been prevented by Rust's type system.
vdaniuk 12y ago
Let's make a small amendment to your simple statement. >The simple explanation is: people use Javascript because it's a good language. That's the big factor in Javascript's success. >The simple explanation is: people use PHP because it's a good language. That's the big factor in PHP's success. Doesn't feel right, does it? Google and corporate sponsors are incredibly important in building the ecosystem of programming language. Traction may be the single major defining characteristic of language success and one can certainly buy traction with money and influence.

peterfirefly 12y ago

The biggest factor probably was that Rob Pike had basically been prototyping the language for 20 years. (But google's name certainly helped.)

vanderZwan 12y ago
Not to take anything away from your comment on this being a language that has been brewing for years, but people really should give Robert Griesemer more credit for his influence on the language design. I know he's the least publically visible of the three, but IIRC godoc and gofmt are mostly his babies. After getting used to those I think I miss them more in other languages than I miss the concurrency.
- Supermighty 12y ago
  Well said. Rob Pike is explicit about early Go development; everything that went into Go was agreed upon by Robert, Ken, and Rob. If all three didn't agree it didn't go in.