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Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

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Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#271

Post by z3c0 »

brianberns wrote: post #37
z3c0 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it's worded confusingly, but I think I can see the point they're making. Solutioning usually looks vastly different when driven by a core team than when it's driven by higher-ups or "The Business". The Go Core team is likely more vested in the overall success of the language than the rest of Google. I'm not certain, because - like I said - it's worded confusingly, but that was my impression.

> The Go Core team is likely more vested in the overall success of the language than the rest of Google. I think you could say that about most teams at most companies. That doesn't mean that they have any autonomy whatsoever from their company, though.

But isn't that what the article is stating? That the core team is making the final decisions?

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#272

Post by phillipcarter »

MikeLui wrote: post #268
phillipcarter wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This situation feels similar to the need of politicians to divest any potential conflicts of interest. With the key difference being that you can use a different language and achieve the same results you want. You can't just pick a different government.

Yes, but they are both still conflicts of interest. Also as the other poster mentions, as Go accrues popularity, it is not always as easy as picking another language.

It's not easy picking another language no matter its popularity, but switching languages and stacks is not uncommon in our industry. In this case it's also entirely on you and your team to achieve success with that switch. This is not at all analogous to a government system.

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#273

Post by objektif »

joemi wrote: post #241
objektif wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not. It is one thing to create a language and maontain it and another to hire someone who created a language some years ago.

from the post: > There was no mandate or suggestion from Google management or executives that Google should develop a programming language. For many years, including well after the open source release, I doubt any Google executives had more than a vague awareness of the existence of Go

That is a ver very strong assumption. Just because Google did not explicitly have a ‘GO’ team does not mean they did not support it. I assume Google became aware of it the moment their employees started using it for something useful. People have bosses who have bosses. At whoch point they decided to let their employees continue working on it.

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#274

Post by phillipcarter »

bradfitz wrote: post #206
nurettin wrote: post #72

Like it or not, Google is probably paying around a million $$ a year to keep senior full-time developers around that want to work on the language. That could be used as a benchmark to calculate how much of an investment is required to have a healthy development cycle. If a community-maintained fork is created, it would need time and monetary investment similar to what google is doing just to maintain and develop non-…

$10M per year would be closer, actually. (Source: public git logs for all core Go repos in past year, look for google.com or golang.org emails, multiply by typical Google salaries, which you can find on various sites.)

Another one to add is the cost of evangelism. Even if someone isn't evangelizing a language directly, they're helping further it so long as they demonstrate how to do stuff with it.

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#275

Post by grumpydba »

apta wrote: post #234
0815test wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...but no one would have adopted it if it weren't. It's a C-like language with GC, that compiles to native code supported by an efficient runtime, and can work effectively with parallel/concurrent code. In many ways it's Java done right, or a more intuitive (and from certain POVs, preferable) alternative to Haskell and Ocaml. That would seem to be enough to drive adoption.

> In many ways it's Java done right Not quite: * no generics * error prone error handling * non tunable GC * null pointers * golang interfaces are messy and can't be used to tag structures * golang time package is garbage and lots more Java today is superior to golang in almost every front.

Memory usage, compile time, simplicity, readability and deployment story are notable fronts in which go is several miles ahead.

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#276

Post by pgeorgi »

shuzchen wrote: post #71
purpleidea wrote: post #60

It's obvious that Golang is Google's language. The most obvious part is they require a CLA that gives them and only them special rights. It's a sham.

I don't know of any large open source project that doesn't require a CLA. As the post suggests, perhaps one day there'll be a Golang Foundation, which would otherwise have ownership of whatever code you contribute. See that Python has a CLA that gives the PSF ownership of your code: https://www.python.org/psf/contrib/contrib-form/ Even the linux kernel has a CLA, they just call it by another name (Developer Certifica…

> Even the linux kernel has a CLA, they just call it by another name (Developer Certificate of Origin)

Who is the single beneficiary of special rights granted under the DCO? CLAs provide a single party with rights nobody else has.

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#277

Post by lozenge »

brianberns wrote: post #37
z3c0 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it's worded confusingly, but I think I can see the point they're making. Solutioning usually looks vastly different when driven by a core team than when it's driven by higher-ups or "The Business". The Go Core team is likely more vested in the overall success of the language than the rest of Google. I'm not certain, because - like I said - it's worded confusingly, but that was my impression.

> The Go Core team is likely more vested in the overall success of the language than the rest of Google. I think you could say that about most teams at most companies. That doesn't mean that they have any autonomy whatsoever from their company, though.

Go can live on if Google collapses, the same cannot be said for most teams at most companies.

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#278

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

> Successful languages pay attention to what people want, but to change the language according to what most people want is, I believe, a recipe for chaos and incoherence. I believe that every successful language must have a coherent vision that is shared by a relatively small group of people.

I'm continually surprised that more of the greater, vocal community does not grok this.

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#279

Post by Thaxll »

apta wrote: post #239
tomohawk wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many of us in the Go community who like Go the way it is. The last thing we want is another Java ecosystem, which feels like something designed by archonaut committee more than anything coherent. Better to not have generics than to have generics that are bodged into the language like they were in Java.

> The last thing we want is another Java ecosystem, Which practically contains almost everything one can think of? Yeah, like that's not a good thing. Where's the golang equivalent of Hadoop, Spark, Vertx, Netty, Akka, etc.? Not to mention the Java standard library with it's new time package, and java.util.concurrent, and many more. > Better to not have generics than to have generics that are bodged into the language…

The Java time package has been a disaster for 20 years until Java 8, before that everyone was using Joda. As for generics have a look at what C# does for "proper" generics.

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#280

Post by crispinb »

apta wrote: post #239
tomohawk wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many of us in the Go community who like Go the way it is. The last thing we want is another Java ecosystem, which feels like something designed by archonaut committee more than anything coherent. Better to not have generics than to have generics that are bodged into the language like they were in Java.

> The last thing we want is another Java ecosystem, Which practically contains almost everything one can think of? Yeah, like that's not a good thing. Where's the golang equivalent of Hadoop, Spark, Vertx, Netty, Akka, etc.? Not to mention the Java standard library with it's new time package, and java.util.concurrent, and many more. > Better to not have generics than to have generics that are bodged into the language…

> Yeah, like that's not a good thing

You think it's a good thing. The parent doesn't. So isn't it better that both Go and Java exist, rather than Go be Java-ised, so you both get what you want?

> Strawman fallacy.

It's only a straw man to those who like the tradeoff. Tradeoffs are always a matter of judgement. The parent (and many others) make a different judgement to you. So isn't it better that both the Java and Go approaches exist, to satisfy different tastes?

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