Google Go: The Good, the Bad, and the Meh • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Go: The Good, the Bad, and the Meh

#31

Post by tptacek » Mon, Feb 11, 2013, 4:24 PM UTC

cdcarter wrote: post #29

stickfigure wrote: post #13

I must be one of the idiot complainers he talks about, because his first "good thing" annoys me right off the bat. If you want to change a private method to public, you have to go through all your code and capitalize every use of it? Yeah, I guess it could be handled with a refactoring IDE... if Go has one. This feels like a throwback to hungarian notation. Names should just be names, quit trying to cram code syntax…

Not only is tptacek completely correct, the Go maintainers are completely against code colorizing, so having visual markers in syntax is quite nice.

They're against code colorizing?

Re: Google Go: The Good, the Bad, and the Meh

#32

Post by tptacek » Mon, Feb 11, 2013, 4:25 PM UTC

incision wrote: post #28

tptacek wrote: post #8

Plus side: I had no idea about "go run foo.go" and it has changed my life. Downside: couldn't read past "And what’s up with all the languages that claim all you need are linked lists? I’m sorry, this is not 1958, and you are not John McCarthy". Did I miss anything amazing in the rest of the article? Thanks in advance.

Too cool to finish reading an article that already "changed your life" so you ask some plebe to give you the tl;dr. Grow up.

Do you write a lot of Go code?

Re: Google Go: The Good, the Bad, and the Meh

#33

Post by DoubleCluster » Mon, Feb 11, 2013, 4:26 PM UTC

ajkjk wrote: post #18

DoubleCluster wrote: post #9

Let’s say I want to declare a pointer to a variable length array (what Python calls a list and Go calls a slice) of pointers to FooType objects: var foo *[]*FooType It reads very simply ... What???? Not that it's better in other languages but this makes the article feel like satire. It reads like "The Ugly" and "The Bad". Aside: What's with the completely defective comment syntax on HN? Can anyone give some hints on…

It's in comparison to the clockwise spiral rule: http://c-faq.com/decl/spiral.anderson.html

Right, it may be a tiny bit better but it's still not easy to read. The only way to make it actually readable is with typedefs.

Re: Google Go: The Good, the Bad, and the Meh

#34

Post by coldtea » Mon, Feb 11, 2013, 4:26 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #25

niggler wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"quitting articles or conversations because of some remark" This is the problem with the internet and with political discourse in the 21st century: as soon as someone says something that seems off-kilter, even if it is technically correct, people stop listening/reading.

It's not correct. He's making an allusion to lisp and imputing to it the notion that everything is a linked list, which is not true. The article is a comparative discussion of programming languages. Earlier, it calls critics of the focal language in the article "idiots". That was OK with me while the author had credibility. It simply lost credibility for me at the point where it asserted that Lisp programmers don't u…

>Earlier, it calls critics of the focal language in the article "idiots".

No, he only calls critics of SPECIFIC aspects of the language (aspects inconsequential and prone to bike-shedding) idiots.

>It simply lost credibility for me at the point where it asserted that Lisp programmers don't use hash tables.

You weren't supposed to read his article as coming from a Lisp expert, seeing that Lisp wasn't the main focus at all.

Heck, you weren't even expected to read the article as coming from a Go expert. Just as an article from a guy that tried Go and shares what he thinks of it.

>It simply lost credibility for me at the point where it asserted that Lisp programmers don't use hash tables.

Would an article by Einstein on relativity "lose credibility" for you if he makes some ignorant remarks about some aspects of mathematics in it?

Re: Google Go: The Good, the Bad, and the Meh

#35

Post by tptacek » Mon, Feb 11, 2013, 4:27 PM UTC

ajkjk wrote: post #18

DoubleCluster wrote: post #9

Let’s say I want to declare a pointer to a variable length array (what Python calls a list and Go calls a slice) of pointers to FooType objects: var foo *[]*FooType It reads very simply ... What???? Not that it's better in other languages but this makes the article feel like satire. It reads like "The Ugly" and "The Bad". Aside: What's with the completely defective comment syntax on HN? Can anyone give some hints on…

It's in comparison to the clockwise spiral rule: http://c-faq.com/decl/spiral.anderson.html

Which is such a baroque rule that it's probably not even a rule: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5079787

Go's declaration syntax is one of the best things about the language. I thought it would take me forever to get used to, but within a day it was the opposite: C feels backwards. It's especially excellent for references to functions.

Re: Google Go: The Good, the Bad, and the Meh

#36

Post by coldtea » Mon, Feb 11, 2013, 4:28 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #20

tptacek wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did I miss anything else? This point isn't very interesting to me.

Well, it's impossible to tell without knowing what's interesting to you. That said, I think the above point is more generic and important than anything Go specific the article could say.

>Never give up hope! One of these days, you'll leave a comment about people's refusal to read blog posts all the way through and by doing so change the world.

I agree. People having patience with other people and going through their argument thoroughly is much more important than someone complaining about another's remarks on his language of choice.

Of Go code I've written around 1000-1500 lines, merely to check the language out (a small server app and a logging utility). That said, Go itself was never the focus of this subthread.

Re: Google Go: The Good, the Bad, and the Meh

#37

Post by tptacek » Mon, Feb 11, 2013, 4:28 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #34

tptacek wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not correct. He's making an allusion to lisp and imputing to it the notion that everything is a linked list, which is not true. The article is a comparative discussion of programming languages. Earlier, it calls critics of the focal language in the article "idiots". That was OK with me while the author had credibility. It simply lost credibility for me at the point where it asserted that Lisp programmers don't u…

> Earlier, it calls critics of the focal language in the article "idiots". No, he only calls critics of SPECIFIC aspects of the language (aspects inconsequential and prone to bike-shedding) idiots. > It simply lost credibility for me at the point where it asserted that Lisp programmers don't use hash tables. You weren't supposed to read his article as coming from a Lisp expert, seeing that Lisp wasn't the main focus…

Uh, yes? EXTREMELY yes?

Re: Google Go: The Good, the Bad, and the Meh

#38

Post by seanmcdirmid » Mon, Feb 11, 2013, 4:31 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #31

cdcarter wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only is tptacek completely correct, the Go maintainers are completely against code colorizing, so having visual markers in syntax is quite nice.

They're against code colorizing?

They mean syntax and semantic highlighting. It's mostly a generational thing that goes along with 80 column line widths on amber terminals.

Re: Google Go: The Good, the Bad, and the Meh

#39

Post by spacemanaki » Mon, Feb 11, 2013, 4:31 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #31

cdcarter wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only is tptacek completely correct, the Go maintainers are completely against code colorizing, so having visual markers in syntax is quite nice.

They're against code colorizing?

Well Rob Pike did call it "juvenile" and compared it to those colored rods that are used to teach children how to count.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5125958

Re: Google Go: The Good, the Bad, and the Meh

#40

Post by coldtea » Mon, Feb 11, 2013, 4:33 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #34

tptacek wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not correct. He's making an allusion to lisp and imputing to it the notion that everything is a linked list, which is not true. The article is a comparative discussion of programming languages. Earlier, it calls critics of the focal language in the article "idiots". That was OK with me while the author had credibility. It simply lost credibility for me at the point where it asserted that Lisp programmers don't u…

> Earlier, it calls critics of the focal language in the article "idiots". No, he only calls critics of SPECIFIC aspects of the language (aspects inconsequential and prone to bike-shedding) idiots. > It simply lost credibility for me at the point where it asserted that Lisp programmers don't use hash tables. You weren't supposed to read his article as coming from a Lisp expert, seeing that Lisp wasn't the main focus…

Well, lots of important contributions in some fields have erroneous and ignorant remarks on other fields.

If that (instead of careful consideration on their own merits and in their main focus) makes them "lose credibility", then well, I guess you should have more patience and tolerance for errors.