Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have such a hard time believing how anyone could have believed that C/C++ programmers would switch to a GC-only language just like that. I just can't see Go as an alternative to C or C++, and I'm quite surprised that anyone (especially someone such as Rob Pike) could. Sure there are situations where a program that typically would have been written in C/C++ could benefit from Go (so there is a place for it), but the…
I think C/C++ programmers have had their reign long enough and have shown us through the amount of utterly horrible security issues that managing memory yourself is a bad idea. Go fits an important niche: stuff that doesn't have to play with the hardware directly, which is pretty much everything but the OS. I controversially consider there to be no other use for C bsaed languages these days other than at the kernel l…
The anything-but-the-OS-niche? I thought we had plenty of languages for that.
It's better to centralise the memory management and optimisation either into a VM or compiler. It's easier and safer to verify a compiler (mathematically or otherwise) than every memory access that you do.
You seem to ignore performance altogether, if you programmed in C/C++ for twenty years but don't care for performance and don't do low-level work, why have you been using C/C++?
Or if you have been doing low level or performance critical work, why wouldn't you want a safer alternative for that?
When you have to tune and debug your application to please the garbage collector having to deal with your own memory seems like child's play. It is much easier and safer to verify that your own memory management won't bite you than it is to be sure that your garbage collector won't eat you. (surely that depends on the context etc. but making broad claims seems to be on topic...)
Right tool for the right job. C/C++ has "monopoly" on a lot of use cases (way more than any other language) and considering its issues I truly believe that a "better C/C++" is needed, way more than those 20 JVM-based languages that popup every other month. Or Go.