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The perfect language and why Go still isn't it

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Re: The perfect language and why Go still isn't it

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zig might become the perfect language, assuming OOP is not must-have :-) https://ziglang.org/

But it has pointless semicolons. No, thanks. ;-)

I like "pointless semicolons" and other redundant info to help the parser (and make things more explicit)

Re: The perfect language and why Go still isn't it

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zig might become the perfect language, assuming OOP is not must-have :-) https://ziglang.org/

But it has pointless semicolons. No, thanks. ;-)

So what we want is a typed compile-able Python? :D

Re: The perfect language and why Go still isn't it

#63
post #57
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even C is full of features if you compare C11 with K&R C, and C20 is already ongoing. And if we consider the amount of compiler specific C extensions, across all C implementations, it gets even bigger.

http://www.lysator.liu.se/c/ANSI-C-grammar-y.html ← 1980's C (429 lines) http://www.quut.com/c/ANSI-C-grammar-y-2011.html ← 2010's C (536 lines)

What is that supposed to say?

A language grammar is only a tiny part of what makes a programming language.

Compare ISO C pages and C compiler manuals instead.

Re: The perfect language and why Go still isn't it

#64
Go and Rust are the latest languages I started to use. Neither is perfect, both are awesome, but more importantly, both are a step forward, both get a lot of things very right, and for the rest, most are at least acceptable. When I code, most of my frustrating moments come from underlying problems with cross compatibility, access to hardware, graphics, encodings, etc, which are rarely problems caused by languages themselves.

We are pretty new at this, we are still trying to figure out a lot of things. We are still experimenting a lot with many features. But step by step, new language after new language, we keep improving.

Trying to be realist tends to be a painful exercise, but in the case of programming languages, I think the situation is looking pretty good. There might be a billion paths left to explore, but at least the ones we are exploring are bringing something useful to the table. I hope we soon start writing articles titled "the perfect languages and the exciting ways we are getting closer to them". The article was pretty good, by the way.

Re: The perfect language and why Go still isn't it

#66
post #37

Every language has flaws. Some of the best languages are those that take existing languages and just throw out some of the bad legacy mistakes, making what’s often a slightly different but pretty much objectively “better” language. For example: Kotlin is a better Java in almost every way. The problem with almost all such languages is that they aren’t different enough from their “parent” languages, meaning they strugg…

I think Kotlin has also leapfrogged D on this — Google blessing it for Android use and an Android community clearly hoping for something better than an aeons-old version of Java goes a very long way. The Android success story might just be what the language needs to establish itself enough that it’ll become a backend staple too

Not a datapoint by any means, but I think kotlin gained grounds mostly on Android, seeing the questions on stack overflow. When they ask about kotlin it's almost always in the context of Android, while Java questions seem to cover a wider range of fields and platforms.

So, could it be more of a reaction to java-for-android being sub-optimal or the fact that Google suggests kotlin to new developers than Java itself being sub-optimal for the task?

Re: The perfect language and why Go still isn't it

#67
post #49
post #39

Well, Go seems to have enabled a new wave of software renaissance - Kubernetes, Docker, you name it - Go seems to have filled the space that Java was too fat for, JavaScript too light for, and C/C++ too difficult/fun-less to use for (which is everything). After 20 years of coding, and having just recently discovered LISP and learned Clojure, I believe the perfect language will be a Clojure compiled to native with the…

> Well, Go seems to have enabled a new wave of software renaissance - Kubernetes, Docker Go turned out to be a pretty bad choice for container tech due to its awful multithreaded runtime. Things could have been different if it focused on a single threaded runtime or provided control over OS threads, but it did neither. Also neither of those projects were enabled by Go. One is a pretty low quality but strategic push i…

> Go turned out to be a pretty bad choice for container tech due to its awful multithreaded runtime.

Can you please elaborate on this? My experience with Go is that it is able to fork/exec programs and manage cgroups via sysfs on Linux at least as well as any other programming language can.

Re: The perfect language and why Go still isn't it

#68
post #49
post #39

Well, Go seems to have enabled a new wave of software renaissance - Kubernetes, Docker, you name it - Go seems to have filled the space that Java was too fat for, JavaScript too light for, and C/C++ too difficult/fun-less to use for (which is everything). After 20 years of coding, and having just recently discovered LISP and learned Clojure, I believe the perfect language will be a Clojure compiled to native with the…

> Well, Go seems to have enabled a new wave of software renaissance - Kubernetes, Docker Go turned out to be a pretty bad choice for container tech due to its awful multithreaded runtime. Things could have been different if it focused on a single threaded runtime or provided control over OS threads, but it did neither. Also neither of those projects were enabled by Go. One is a pretty low quality but strategic push i…

> Go turned out to be a pretty bad choice for container tech due to its awful multithreaded runtime.

What you mean by that? What makes it a bad choice in context of containers ? I ask because I know how Go is using M:N threading model in its runtime and what linux containers really are, but I can't find a reason in which I would use word awful to describe using Go in this context.

Re: The perfect language and why Go still isn't it

#69
I really like Go (and Rust) and would like a job as its main language. However I don't have enough experience with the language, anyone know the job market and recommend a path or should I give up? I don't have time to spend a few hours/wk just to learn enough to get experience.

Re: The perfect language and why Go still isn't it

#70
post #69

I really like Go (and Rust) and would like a job as its main language. However I don't have enough experience with the language, anyone know the job market and recommend a path or should I give up? I don't have time to spend a few hours/wk just to learn enough to get experience.

Usually, people start building demo’s or other side projects at their main job using whatever new tech they want to pad to their resume. This is bad for the company and your coworkers, but for people jumping ship every 2-3 years leaving a mess has few downsides.

A more ethical approach is to simply learn at work during downtime over browsing the web. It even looks like work, so few people complain.

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