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Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

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Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#71

Post by jacquesm »

dripton wrote: post #68
jacquesm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could compare python with perl or php, you could compare Go with C, C++ or Java. But to compare Go to Python is a bit weird. Of course, you could do it, but why would you, almost every metric that you'd want to use would be off. You're comparing a compiled language with lightweight threads aimed at just-above-low-level programming backed by a single vendor with an interpreted language that is mostly geared toward…

I think it's fine to compare Go and Python. They're both general-purpose programming languages. When choosing to write a new program, you can often pick either of them. I can imagine problems where either might be a reasonable choice. In fact, there are programs that I've written in both. (Granted, those were Project Euler exercises, not code that someone was paying me to write.) Don't get too caught up in the market…

> I can imagine problems where either might be a reasonable choice.

Yes, I can imagine that too. But there are also a very large number of problems where either one is a (much) better fit, and it would seem to me that that is the majority of problems, not of the 'toy' variety.

The biggest factor in picking a language for a specific project is (in my opinion) availability of libraries and familiarity with the language by the team. Python scores very high for a large number of people in both those categories but it has been around for a while.

Go is backed by one of the largest software companies on the planet so it stands a chance but google has a bad rep when it comes to cutting off projects in mid stride.

The devil is always in the details with choices like these and without knowing more about a specific problem and the people that you intend to do the work with it is hard to say which one is the better fit beforehand.

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#72

Post by zvrba »

In light of C++11, I see Go as something rather obsolete. I see absolutely no reason why I should spend my time on a language that's different just for the sake of it, instead of studying new features of C++.

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#73

Post by protomyth »

dagw wrote: post #53
leoc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess that C++, Java and NIH are all powerful forces at Google.

Given that Google hired Guido Van Rossum and that python is one of the three (and up until very recently two) supported languages for GAE, I think we can safely assume the Google isn't entirely anti python.

Historically, Sun hired John Ousterhout and that didn't turn out terribly well for TCL backing by Sun.

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#74

Post by hrktb »

alexchamberlain wrote: post #38
heretohelp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody believes GC is a bad idea, it's a canard to suggest otherwise. It's that it's a contradiction of terms to say that you are offering a "systems" language but the language in question has non-optional GC. Go isn't competing with C and C++, it's competing with Java and C#.

I believe GC is a bad idea. Programmers should know what their objects are doing.

Agreed. But sometimes you can know what your object are doing but not want to manage them.

It's tangential, but in my experience coding in Java or any other GC enabled language doesn't mean you can completely ignore the memory management. You still have to watch for leaks, unefficiencies or anything you would have cared for if you managed memory yourself.

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#75

Post by groovy2shoes »

kibwen wrote: post #52
heretohelp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the most promising out of the current cohort that includes Rust, I'll say that much. Clay seems to understand that you cannot compromise.

"Clay seems to understand that you cannot compromise." Perhaps I'm cynical, but having had no experience with Clay this statement fills me with dread. Care to elaborate? Edit: ah, I see elsewhere you've defined what you mean by "no compromises." Still, I'd be interested in hearing what makes Clay the front-runner in this field if you care to tell. :)

From a language level, Clay offers a lot of features over plain old C: strong typing, type parameters, polymorphism, etc. All of the additional features map onto the machine in a very specific way, giving you the same kind of control that structs, arrays, etc. do in C. It doesn't force garbage collection on you. You can even call external C functions by simply declaring them, similar to how you would do it in C itself.

Clay seems to have a lot of potential in the systems programming space. The language is still in a bit of flux, but it's the first C alternative that still has me excited after using it (which can't be said for C++, D, Go, or Rust).

The folks in #clay on freenode are very friendly and helpful. You can tell that they've been keeping up with advances in PLT but that they also understand the kinds of low-level things systems programmers need to do.

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#76

Post by flogic »

smanek wrote: post #5
babarock wrote: post #3

Unfortunately, as much as I want to agree with it, the article seriously lacks any credibility. Go claims to present high-level features (namely GC) for low-level system programming. Obviously, this sounds new and ground-breaking. Simply dismissing it on account that "GC is unacceptable [for low level problems]" is nothing short of stating a disbelief: it doesn't prove anything. If anyone wants to prove any shortcomi…

Do you seriously doubt that the Go GC is significantly worse than the Oracle JVM GC (by the metrics of pause times and throughput)? I don't think I've ever heard anyone suggest that it isn't. My point with this article is simply that, even if Go's GC catches up to the JVMs (which would be an amazing accomplishment in itself), it would still be too inefficient for serious systems work. I provided several real-world ex…

In C, don't people just allocate a slab of memory for critical paths too?

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#77

Post by reitzensteinm »

drats wrote: post #47
jrockway wrote: post #7

Go is designed for large codebases, which is a problem that the author may not have, and so he may not see the benefits. One key feature is that the Go compiler itself is the style guide: it automatically reformats your code to remove style guide violations. This makes it easy to work on a codebase the size of Google's because everything looks like it was written by the same person. We try to do the same thing for C+…

>Go tries to be as expressive as Python and run as fast as Java Why the seemingly almost complete lack of love for Pypy from Google then? It's not like you can stop using Python anytime soon even if you keep extending Go. I believe Google's made one tiny donation to Pypy. Given their benchmarks ( http://speed.pypy.org/ ) and given Google has literally tens of billions in hard cash lying around I can't see how you can…

PyPy's memory usage up until now has been quite a bit higher, which makes it unsuitable for some server workloads.

Still, I assume this is fixable, and it's getting more and more competitive in terms of the megabyte-second cost of computation (i.e. if you use twice as much memory but run four times as fast, that can be OK depending on the circumstances).

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#78

Post by axiak »

smanek wrote: post #5
babarock wrote: post #3

Unfortunately, as much as I want to agree with it, the article seriously lacks any credibility. Go claims to present high-level features (namely GC) for low-level system programming. Obviously, this sounds new and ground-breaking. Simply dismissing it on account that "GC is unacceptable [for low level problems]" is nothing short of stating a disbelief: it doesn't prove anything. If anyone wants to prove any shortcomi…

Do you seriously doubt that the Go GC is significantly worse than the Oracle JVM GC (by the metrics of pause times and throughput)? I don't think I've ever heard anyone suggest that it isn't. My point with this article is simply that, even if Go's GC catches up to the JVMs (which would be an amazing accomplishment in itself), it would still be too inefficient for serious systems work. I provided several real-world ex…

My understanding is that go still provides a lot of tools to indicate when you want memory allocated and where the memory will go (which can optionally be left out). If these were used, wouldn't that make it easier for the go gc to perform better?

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#79

Post by fauigerzigerk »

Where Go fits in seems very clear to me. It is a less memory hungry and less verbose replacement for Java, fit for the age of fine grained parallelism.

Go will never replace C/C++ for embedded systems and operating systems. Go will never replace JavaScript in the browser. And Go will never replace Haskell, Lisp, ML, Scheme, etc, for those who have a very deep interest in programming languages themselves.

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#80

Post by dagw »

protomyth wrote: post #73
dagw wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that Google hired Guido Van Rossum and that python is one of the three (and up until very recently two) supported languages for GAE, I think we can safely assume the Google isn't entirely anti python.

Historically, Sun hired John Ousterhout and that didn't turn out terribly well for TCL backing by Sun.

Fair point. Or for a more recent example, Microsoft hiring Simon Peyton-Jones and yet showing no interest in actually using Haskell for anything.
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