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Go and Assembly

doxsey.net

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Re: Go and Assembly

#11

Post by dualogy »

freehunter wrote: post #2

And herein lies the problem with Go. Seriously, try searching for articles about Go on HN. People always say "well the name isn't a problem, because you just search for it with "golang" instead!" but no one writes golang unless they're pointing out how to search for it . If I was trying to get back to this article a month from now and I searched for "go", would I find it? Probably not, unless I remembered the article…

[[[EDIT: wrote this little rant before realizing you specifically refer to HN search rather than general search. Yeah why would I ever search on a specific Go topic exclusively on HN, instead of web-searching?]]]

Every time a Go article comes up, the "name searchability" discussion comes up. Go's been around for some 4-5 years now, can we all come to terms with its name?

Somehow whenever brainfuck-lang threads show up, this issue is never raised, but surely might exist just the same? What about Perl (a common word), or Basic (even more basic), heck "C" (a freakin' letter). Is that so much better for searchability? Rust -- a common word. D -- a freakin' letter. Miranda -- a language but also the name of 100s of townships, an IM client etc etc.

Go is not the first language to have this "problem", and in fair daily practice it never ever is a problem. Because you never search for Go, you search for "Go channels" or "Go image processing" or "Go GTK binding" or "Go compiler error X" etc. etc. Like you would for all these other fine examples of oddly named languages. And somehow, Google is semantically smart enough to present a few decent matches among the first 10, even with all your personalization & tracking cookies etc. etc. disabled.

So... problem? Herin lies the problem with Go? Seriously... it's just not a big freaking deal getting in the way of getting stuff done. Promised.

Re: Go and Assembly

#12

Post by dualogy »

cdoxsey wrote: post #8
dualogy wrote: post #6

Great write-up. As I'm perusing the math/somefeature_arm.s and math/somefeature_amd64.s files in Go's math package, I can't help notice most of them look like this: http://golang.org/src/pkg/math/remainder_arm.s That is, very short code that just looks like a function call to me, the complete asm noob. What is it, are all these maths functions implemented in hardware by amd64 and arm architectures? Or is this "asm co…

In this case there is a 386 implementation: http://golang.org/src/pkg/math/remainder_386.s The other two call the go version: http://golang.org/src/pkg/math/remainder.go

Yeah that was kinda my point ;)) so basically 386 users get some highly specialized hand-tuned asm optimization whereas arm and amd64 merely get a commoner's gc treatment -- or am I missing something? ;)

Re: Go and Assembly

#13

Post by TylerE »

dualogy wrote: post #11
freehunter wrote: post #2

And herein lies the problem with Go. Seriously, try searching for articles about Go on HN. People always say "well the name isn't a problem, because you just search for it with "golang" instead!" but no one writes golang unless they're pointing out how to search for it . If I was trying to get back to this article a month from now and I searched for "go", would I find it? Probably not, unless I remembered the article…

[[[EDIT: wrote this little rant before realizing you specifically refer to HN search rather than general search. Yeah why would I ever search on a specific Go topic exclusively on HN, instead of web-searching?]]] Every time a Go article comes up, the "name searchability" discussion comes up. Go's been around for some 4-5 years now, can we all come to terms with its name? Somehow whenever brainfuck-lang threads show u…

Your examples make no real sense, other than "Basic". Perl is absolutely NOT a common word. Pearl is common, but Perl is the programming language (only)

Re: Go and Assembly

#15

Post by dlisboa »

dualogy wrote: post #11
freehunter wrote: post #2

And herein lies the problem with Go. Seriously, try searching for articles about Go on HN. People always say "well the name isn't a problem, because you just search for it with "golang" instead!" but no one writes golang unless they're pointing out how to search for it . If I was trying to get back to this article a month from now and I searched for "go", would I find it? Probably not, unless I remembered the article…

[[[EDIT: wrote this little rant before realizing you specifically refer to HN search rather than general search. Yeah why would I ever search on a specific Go topic exclusively on HN, instead of web-searching?]]] Every time a Go article comes up, the "name searchability" discussion comes up. Go's been around for some 4-5 years now, can we all come to terms with its name? Somehow whenever brainfuck-lang threads show u…

Java, Python, Ruby, Lua, Haskell.

All names which the programming language is one of the last things a search engine would normally associate, but by sheer number of hits you end up finding stuff. When they were invented these names weren't good either.

The discussion about Go's name is indeed useless.

Re: Go and Assembly

#17

Post by dualogy »

TylerE wrote: post #13
dualogy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[[[EDIT: wrote this little rant before realizing you specifically refer to HN search rather than general search. Yeah why would I ever search on a specific Go topic exclusively on HN, instead of web-searching?]]] Every time a Go article comes up, the "name searchability" discussion comes up. Go's been around for some 4-5 years now, can we all come to terms with its name? Somehow whenever brainfuck-lang threads show u…

Your examples make no real sense, other than "Basic". Perl is absolutely NOT a common word. Pearl is common, but Perl is the programming language (only)

zOMG you're right re pearl -- I'm kinda shocked at myself right now. In my defense, in German it's "Perle" so not that different...

OK scratch the Perl example. Still standing by my point: it's a "problem" shared by many languages and it's not a problem in the first place.

Re: Go and Assembly

#18

Post by TylerE »

dlisboa wrote: post #15
dualogy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[[[EDIT: wrote this little rant before realizing you specifically refer to HN search rather than general search. Yeah why would I ever search on a specific Go topic exclusively on HN, instead of web-searching?]]] Every time a Go article comes up, the "name searchability" discussion comes up. Go's been around for some 4-5 years now, can we all come to terms with its name? Somehow whenever brainfuck-lang threads show u…

Java, Python, Ruby, Lua, Haskell. All names which the programming language is one of the last things a search engine would normally associate, but by sheer number of hits you end up finding stuff. When they were invented these names weren't good either. The discussion about Go's name is indeed useless.

There's a crucial difference. Those are longer words. Many search engines either ignore, or outright throw an error on, search terms shorter than 3/4 characters.

Re: Go and Assembly

#19

Post by TylerE »

dualogy wrote: post #17
TylerE wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your examples make no real sense, other than "Basic". Perl is absolutely NOT a common word. Pearl is common, but Perl is the programming language (only)

zOMG you're right re pearl -- I'm kinda shocked at myself right now. In my defense, in German it's "Perle" so not that different... OK scratch the Perl example. Still standing by my point: it's a "problem" shared by many languages and it's not a problem in the first place.

I found a list of English words by frequecy of use in Project Gutenberg texts.

"Basic" is around #9,500.

"Rust" is ~#10,950

"Java" doesn't appear at all (List goes out to 40,000) (Admittedly, somewhat biased by the dated-ness of the material, but it's still not a common one.)

Go is #106, and modern lists based on contemporary sources place it in the top 50 most used English words.

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