Generics enabled by default in Go tip

Post by vips7L » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 7:43 PM UTC

takeda wrote: post #107

theshrike79 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say "verbose and repetitive", I say "easy to read without any surprises". The verbose patterns (if err!= nil for example) make the code predictable to read, you notice the code smell of missing error handling really fast.

I think readability has multiple dimensions, and it really depends what you are looking for. For example here's a code in Go to look for a Prime: func IsPrime(n int) bool { if n It's readable as it is simple to understand what each line does. Here for example is a code that does the same thing in Rust: fn is_prime(n: u64) -> bool { match n { 0...1 => false, _ => !(2..n).any(|d| n % d == 0), } } It's might seem more c…

    static boolean isPrime(int n) {

        return switch (n) {
            case 0, 1 -> false,
            default -> !IntStream.range(2, n).anyMatch(i -> n % i == 0)
        }
    }

Post by dolni » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 7:54 PM UTC

chrismarlow9 wrote: post #307

smokey_circles wrote: post #187

Language flamewars on internet forums are... strange. Why have we all so strongly coupled our identities as programmers to the language we use? Sense of community and a perceived need to defend it? I don't think Go needs generics, but I'm not about to invent obscure edge cases to justify for/against the idea. That's a recurring theme in all defenses of any language. It's not helpful. Use Go if you like the "clarity",…

For me it's about paradigms the language represents. I try to extend the simplicity of golang all the way to the network architecture. I've learned that it's better to build many very very simple things and connect them. Not for any technical reasons, but because it allows other developers to quickly begin adding to and fixing your systems. You get to leverage the large amount of mediocre programmers when your system…

Post by pjmlp » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 8:43 PM UTC

wvh wrote: post #301

13415 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no doubt that Go needs generics. Pretty much every Go container and data structure library on github will benefit from generics. The empty interface is used everywhere , leading to all kinds of panicking typecasts, hard to debug errors, and inefficient conversions. The vast majority of these uses can be made type-safe, more efficient, and clearer with generics. There is nothing subjective about the benefits…

There's some pain in writing generic data structure algorithms for sure. It would have been an interesting experiment though if the Go authors would have tried to improve the tooling around code generation and making it easier to use, as an alternative avenue to generics as code generation might satisfy some of the cases likely to trigger those complains. Anyway, interesting to see how far they will take the generics…

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 8:48 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #54

tedunangst wrote: post #34

Every HN thread about go: go is useless because it lacks generics. Go adds generics. HN thread: I don't want this. Good case study about the people drawn to comment on a topic.

From what I have seen over the years, the "I don't want generics" crowd showed up just as often as the "Go is useless without generics" crowd. This time, though, only one of those groups can reasonably continue to comment.

Post by bogota » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 8:52 PM UTC

lamontcg wrote: post #138

bogota wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If i wanted or needed generics i would use another language. I have been able to write great code without them for 5 years now though. But now i get to defend my codebases from the unneeded introduction of them from largely developers who think they are too smart.

you sound like you're too smart for generics.