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Python Is Easy. Go Is Simple. Simple != Easy

preslav.me

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Re: Python Is Easy. Go Is Simple. Simple != Easy

#51

Post by aeonik »

hu3 wrote: post #33
reginaldo wrote: post #11

And Clojure has "Simple made easy" [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxdOUGdseq4 -> on of Rich Hickey's best talks

I wonder why isn't Clojure more popular.

It's the learning curve.

There is a very DIY approach with composition, with lots of library choices. This makes it tough for beginners and intermediate programmers to jump right in and be productive.

That plus functional programming, plus immutable defaults, plus Lisp, filter out developers who don't have a lot of experience, dedication, or a mentor.

The more I learn though, the more I love it.

Re: Python Is Easy. Go Is Simple. Simple != Easy

#52

Post by distortedsignal »

phplovesong wrote: post #4

No matter what your opinion is about Go (as a language), but they nailed it for bigger projects. Go code always looks the same, performance is predictable and fast enough for most programs, and its really, really easy to be productive. When i picked up Go i basically got shit done without ever having written a single line of Go. Its statically typed (with generics yey!) and compiles very fast. Its easy to create smal…

Ok, maybe you can help me figure something out that I haven’t been able to.

I’ve got a project broken down into modules. Module A uses module B. These are both checked into GitHub, so the module path is something like guthub.com/distortedsignal/my-project/src/a or whatever.

I need to make a change across both of these modules. Will my compilation pick up the changes?

What if I need to make a backward-incompatible change in b when b is a fully separate project?

Re: Python Is Easy. Go Is Simple. Simple != Easy

#53

Post by sethammons »

I'm diving back into python after being mostly away for the better part of a decade having built high scale, highly available systems in Go during that time (including migrating several projects from python and perl to go). Being suddenly back in python is jarring. So much inheritance - abstract base classes and multiple inheritance via mixins, strange coupling in tests via over use of mocking and patching, and a reliance on method overloading to do magic things like make a field actually call out to the database on usage causing strange behavior that is unexpected. I miss Go and I will be pushing for it via the strangler pattern to bring productivity and sense to this project.

Re: Python Is Easy. Go Is Simple. Simple != Easy

#54

Post by ghayes »

baby wrote: post #32
phplovesong wrote: post #4

No matter what your opinion is about Go (as a language), but they nailed it for bigger projects. Go code always looks the same, performance is predictable and fast enough for most programs, and its really, really easy to be productive. When i picked up Go i basically got shit done without ever having written a single line of Go. Its statically typed (with generics yey!) and compiles very fast. Its easy to create smal…

The way I describe it is that Golang is optimized for reading, other languages are often optimized for writing. If you have to deal with someone else’s codebase, then Golang is a godsend. I also like that you pointed out that every Golang codebase looks the same. I think part of that is that Golang’s formatter can’t be customized. I pushed for that to happen in Rust but lost the battle.

I've actually found Golang codebases to be the hardest to read, mostly due to the non-locality of effects from channels. It's just to easy to read a line of code and not know where to move next.

Re: Python Is Easy. Go Is Simple. Simple != Easy

#55

Post by ingoaf »

mrweasel wrote: post #36
zimpenfish wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it doesn't have this overbloated concept of inheritance and polymorphism of let's say Java where you have to look through 6 files to understand what's even going on Several Go codebases I've worked on would like a word. Some Go people really love their interfaces and abstractions and making sure every method is only 3 lines and pretty soon you're 20 files and three type hierarchies deep trying to figure out what a…

A certain number of developers will be able to complicate any language or mechanism you provide them, it's how they feel important. I've notice the there is a group of people who has their entire identity tied up in being "smarter" than everyone else, except they aren't, so they build extremely complex systems, because they think that's what smart people do. They are interestingly often extremely well versed in their…

This is actually a real gem of a comment. Thank you for that!

Re: Python Is Easy. Go Is Simple. Simple != Easy

#56

Post by theshrike79 »

emodendroket wrote: post #3

Yeah, but the amount of boilerplate one must read and write in Go is frustrating, even compared to Java.

You can see the structure in the boilerplate pretty quickly. And because it's boilerplate, you'll also instantly see when it's missing.

Re: Python Is Easy. Go Is Simple. Simple != Easy

#57

Post by whalesalad »

hu3 wrote: post #33
reginaldo wrote: post #11

And Clojure has "Simple made easy" [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxdOUGdseq4 -> on of Rich Hickey's best talks

I wonder why isn't Clojure more popular.

lisp turns a lot of people off - it does require some retraining of your mind. when people need to get shit done this friction is too great, and so they fall back on other tools.

going to do advent of code in clojure this year though to force myself back into it - it's a great language.

Re: Python Is Easy. Go Is Simple. Simple != Easy

#58

Post by pclmulqdq »

avgcorrection wrote: post #16
pclmulqdq wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With things like copilot, the boilerplate (if err != nil sorts of things) comes out really easily, and you can skim past it when reading. Also, I have noticed that a lot of the other stuff that people call boilerplate in Go is actually an artifact of static typing (eg having to unmarshal JSONs before querying them), and is ultimately what prevents you from having Python-style runtime crashes or weird bugs.

> With things like copilot, the boilerplate (if err != nil sorts of things) comes out really easily, and you can skim past it when reading. Easily ... but is that simple though.

It's very simple. It's explicit and tells you exactly how errors are handled (if you care), and it follows a very common pattern that is easy to ignore when you don't want to know how errors are handled. Simple and concise are two very different things.

In comparison, languages with exceptions give you a minefield around every function call.

Re: Python Is Easy. Go Is Simple. Simple != Easy

#59

Post by avgcorrection »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #58
avgcorrection wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With things like copilot, the boilerplate (if err != nil sorts of things) comes out really easily, and you can skim past it when reading. Easily ... but is that simple though.

It's very simple. It's explicit and tells you exactly how errors are handled (if you care), and it follows a very common pattern that is easy to ignore when you don't want to know how errors are handled. Simple and concise are two very different things. In comparison, languages with exceptions give you a minefield around every function call.

Ok. Then I will spell it out: using an LLM to generate code is not remotely simple.

Re: Python Is Easy. Go Is Simple. Simple != Easy

#60

Post by goodpoint »

avgcorrection wrote: post #14
phplovesong wrote: post #4

No matter what your opinion is about Go (as a language), but they nailed it for bigger projects. Go code always looks the same, performance is predictable and fast enough for most programs, and its really, really easy to be productive. When i picked up Go i basically got shit done without ever having written a single line of Go. Its statically typed (with generics yey!) and compiles very fast. Its easy to create smal…

> No matter what your opinion is about Go (as a language), but they nailed it for bigger projects. I don’t understand this template? 1. No matter your opinion on X: 2. Opinion Y is true about X! If all you have are compliments about X: just go directly to (2). You’re not making a begrudging concession, after all.

A form of whataboutism.
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