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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

#131

Post by kamaal »

dagw wrote: post #80
protomyth wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Companies spend money on things that bring them profits or enable making profits.

Java and C# helped their companies do that.

But with Python,Tcl and Haskell its a little different. Its good for the companies if they off, but if they don't they don't loose anything.

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#132

Post by plinkplonk »

kamaal wrote: post #129
mapgrep wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re #2, I heard ~November that Python was deprecated in production at Google. No idea what the details/caveats on that are (I presume it applies mainly to new code?).

This is something that I see at many places these days. Scripting has become synonymous with Perl. And for anything else People are really going in for Java. But Django and Rails seem to be the major reasons why people continue to use Python. Having said that no company that is making billions in profits is going to bet their very survival on a framework written and maintained by volunteers. Frameworks come and go, E…

"Scripting has become synonymous with Perl."

This is a remarkable claim. Well beyond what the most dedicated perl enthusiast could make with a straight face.

Do you have any supporting data or evidence to back it up?

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#133

Post by amcintyre »

mapgrep wrote: post #109
stdbrouw wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) Google spent lots of developer resources on Unladen Swallow, which ended up not giving the speed increases they expected, but that's another story. (2) Last thing I heard, Google's trying to minimize their Python usage in favor of Java.

Re #2, I heard ~November that Python was deprecated in production at Google. No idea what the details/caveats on that are (I presume it applies mainly to new code?).

Thanks for mentioning that--I'd never heard of that before. (Although it's not like I'm in danger of getting a job there. :)

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#134

Post by kamaal »

plinkplonk wrote: post #132
kamaal wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something that I see at many places these days. Scripting has become synonymous with Perl. And for anything else People are really going in for Java. But Django and Rails seem to be the major reasons why people continue to use Python. Having said that no company that is making billions in profits is going to bet their very survival on a framework written and maintained by volunteers. Frameworks come and go, E…

"Scripting has become synonymous with Perl." This is a remarkable claim. Well beyond what the most dedicated perl enthusiast could make with a straight face. Do you have any supporting data or evidence to back it up?

I have hardly seen any shop so far, at least in the most big/medium corporates who use Python or Ruby heavily in scripting. Its either bash or Perl. The problem is as I said, Neither Ruby or Python were every marketed, designed or even took off as a Scripting languages. Most start ups pick up Python/Ruby basically because they don't need a new language with their existing Django/Rails code base.

Even in such cases one you infrastructure begins to expand, one you are a reasonably sized team. Perl usage becomes inevitable.

Even among the heavy Python using companies like Google, its becoming clear why anybody would not use Python or even deprecate it in production. Because it doesn't quite really have a strong dedicated niche. Php has the web, Perl has the scripting/glue part on the Unix environment. Java has the static large app part.

Python/Ruby have great web development frameworks.But when it comes to scripting, there are no real alternatives to Perl. And besides if you wish to develop large applications, Static languages serve well. There is no point in using Python when you don't want to cook things quickly.

You will be shocked how many places apart from web communities and forums like these people haven't even heard of Ruby and Python. Most of my friends in big companies some of who also lead big teams over the years 'have just had a look at Python'.

I realize that I have posted this in a community that likes Python a lot and I'm likely to be downvoted. But I'm writing just what I've seen over time.

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#135

Post by drats »

kamaal wrote: post #134
plinkplonk wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Scripting has become synonymous with Perl." This is a remarkable claim. Well beyond what the most dedicated perl enthusiast could make with a straight face. Do you have any supporting data or evidence to back it up?

I have hardly seen any shop so far, at least in the most big/medium corporates who use Python or Ruby heavily in scripting. Its either bash or Perl. The problem is as I said, Neither Ruby or Python were every marketed, designed or even took off as a Scripting languages. Most start ups pick up Python/Ruby basically because they don't need a new language with their existing Django/Rails code base. Even in such cases on…

I never trust anyone who uses the designation "scripting language" let alone those who use it with a capital 'S '. There is absolutely no formal definition of this and it's been repeatedly picked apart such that I don't even have to do it here.

Regarding your other comments they seem to be way off base and just using your personal bubble/ "what I've seen over time". Ruby and Python have crushed Perl in modern web development (Twitter and Reddit come to mind among many others). Python has vast user communities in research and science (including computer science teaching now, MIT, Stanford). Perl might be before Ruby in the pack behind R/Matlab/Mathmatica/Python in some research settings, but that's not saying much. Python additionally is the chosen admin utility language of Red Hat and Ubuntu for their Linux distributions, so it seems there are real alternatives to Perl.

I'm not saying Perl is bad, I am just saying objectively it's been in decline since the 1990s against its rising competitors in all areas: universities, other research, Linux systems administration, application development and web development.

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#136

Post by luriel »

cageface wrote: post #14
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#.

Go isn't competing with C and C++, it's competing with Java and C#. This is exactly why I'm taking a wait & see approach. If it gains enough momentum to develop the kind of tool & library ecosystem Java & C# enjoy I'll learn it but I've wasted enough time chasing dark horse language contenders already.

The "tool & library ecosystem" in Java is one of its main reasons why many people avoids it like the plague.

And that using Java is almost impossible without such tools and 'frameworks' doesn't tell you much good about the language itself.

With Go there is little need for such extra stuff, and the tools that exist are very simple and very useful (eg., gofmt, gofix) without being required to make up for deficiencies in the language.

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#137

Post by wisty »

microtonal wrote: post #29
wisty wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SQL isn't, and if it's not a serious language, what is? Perl and PHP are what the web app layer was originally built on, and they seem to be designed to maximize developer efficiency for small projects. Haskell is definitely interesting. If I wanted to build a large system that was super-performant, I'd look at C, Haskell, and Go. I don't know enough to make a great decision, but all three look good. Go has the advan…

SQL isn't, and if it's not a serious language, what is? Perl and PHP are what the web app layer was originally built on, and they seem to be designed to maximize developer efficiency for small projects. I intentionally said most , since, obviously there are serious domain-specific languages. But stating that Go is designed for large code bases, creates a false dichotomy. Go has the advantage of being designed for the…

> That's a good point. But as a result it provides only a marginally better type system, at the cost of performance compared to C. Why not make it a lot better than C, with the same performance?

For many things, GC is a huge productivity boost. I've heard good things about C99, C will probably evolve into a language with a better type system anyway. I don't use C myself, but I don't see why there couldn't be a flag to ensure code only uses a saner subset of the type system.

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#138

Post by batista »

jacquesm wrote: post #36
batista wrote: post #22

For all the talk of the speed benefits of Go, and it being static et all, I don't see much improvement over, say, Python. A lot of the questions re speed bumps on the mailing list are answered with "those are microbenchmarks, what matters is real cases" and generally a "lalala hands in the ears approach", even when it's obvious that the problem is deeper than some microbenchmark only case. Like this example: https://…

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…

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 towards single threads of execution with a very high level of expressiveness that is developed by a bunch of open source gurus under the supervision of a benevolent dictator.

The development model (benevolent dictator/backing company) does not have anything to do with the comparison. The license is also orthogonal. Not sure why you are adding those to the table.

The comparison I made is all about runtime behavior re: speed/memory usage here.

And, what I am saying is that despite Go being static and compiled and touted as "very fast", it's slower in a lot of respects to EVEN plain old Python, not to mention Java, which runs circles around it.

I'm not saying one would/should use Python and Go for the same tasks (though many people do, seeings as Go feels a little like a dynamic scripting language thanks to the easy syntax and the nice type system).

I'm saying "Hey, isn't the basic reason for someone to use Go over something like, say, Python, that it's supposed to be faster and with better memory handling? How does that play in practice?".

Re: Why I Don't Want to Learn Go

#139

Post by vgnet »

stdbrouw wrote: post #59
drats wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

(1) Google spent lots of developer resources on Unladen Swallow, which ended up not giving the speed increases they expected, but that's another story. (2) Last thing I heard, Google's trying to minimize their Python usage in favor of Java.

AFAIK, Unladen was a 20% project for a couple (less than 5) Googlers, running without any corporate support beyond the 20% system.
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