Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#61

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 4:59 PM UTC

boomlinde wrote: post #39

pjmlp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swift is a general purpose language. I fail to see what it lacks.

So are Python and Ruby, but most people will agree that those are unsuitable for certain types of highly concurrent and performance sensitive network applications. Using the right language for a particular domain can save you a lot of headache. Go is open source and a relatively proven choice, compared to Swift.

Python and Ruby aren't a suitable comparison, because they lack AOT compilers to native code as part of their canonical implementation, which is not the case for Swift.

As for access to the language implementation, Swift is Apple's creation.

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#62

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:01 PM UTC

boomlinde wrote: post #35

pjmlp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Go, but fail to see how Swift and C++14 don't fit the bill as well. EDIT: changed to a more constructive comment.

"I like X, but i fail to see why Y and Z don't fit the bill as well." Try repeating your point for any order of X, Y and Z, and you might realize it isn't really a valid reason for them to have used Swift or C++ instead.

Apple owns C++ and Swift compilers.

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#63

Post by lmz » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:01 PM UTC

runeks wrote: post #42

manacit wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A /24 for a company of their size is nothing - they actually have the entire 17.0.0.0/8 to themselves: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assigned_/8_IPv4_addres...

Interesting. I know Google uses the IP 8.8.8.8 (and 8.8.4.4) for their public DNS servers. So it seems Level3 doesn't own the entire 8.0.0.0/8 block then.

They do, but they reassign some of them to other parties: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-8-0-0-0-1/children

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#64

Post by NateDad » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:01 PM UTC

josu wrote: post #59

NateDad wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go is not really a "Google" technology. It's just a programming language like any other. There's no reason Apple shouldn't use it, if it's the right tool for the job.

Well, it'd be pretty weird if Go-ogle started developing their applications in Swift.

I don't think it would be weird if they developed OSX/iOS applications in Swift.

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#65

Post by Shebanator » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:02 PM UTC

josu wrote: post #59

NateDad wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go is not really a "Google" technology. It's just a programming language like any other. There's no reason Apple shouldn't use it, if it's the right tool for the job.

Well, it'd be pretty weird if Go-ogle started developing their applications in Swift.

Actually, google does a lot of iOS development and has dozens of shipping iOS apps (https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/google-inc./id281956209), and thus has a pretty sizable community of Objective C programmers. So Google will almost certainly be shipping apps containign Swift code as soon as the tools stabilize enough for them to do so.

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#66

Post by NateDad » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:03 PM UTC

ihsw wrote: post #58

NateDad wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a hardware company, the write a crapload of software... like Mac OS, iOS, and all the built-in applications. I'd say they probably do a lot more on software than hardware, actually. They only release a few pieces of hardware a year.

It's not difficult to argue that reliable hardware is only a delivery mechanism to enable the usage of Apple's software, however I doubt users would purchase a "Samsung iPhone" or "LG iPhone" in the same manner that they do for Android devices. The Apple hardware brand, the hardware itself, and the software all together sustain the user demographic.

Oh sure, the product they sell is the integration between hardware and software. But saying they are "much more" a hardware company than a software company is selling them pretty short.

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#67

Post by wsc981 » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:03 PM UTC

unwind wrote: post #8

Not at all sure why it's relevant which programming languages they use at Apple. Is this considered interesting since it somehow proves the mainstream adoption of Go? Or since Apple, a competitor of Google's in cell phones, are using one of Google's technologies? Or what? The takeaway for me was that Apple has a whole /8 subnet to themselves. That's just ... immense, for a single company. Gaah. EDIT: Mis-typed the ne…

Relevant XKCD comic "Map of the internet": http://xkcd.com/195/

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#68

Post by a_c_s » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:04 PM UTC

josu wrote: post #59

NateDad wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go is not really a "Google" technology. It's just a programming language like any other. There's no reason Apple shouldn't use it, if it's the right tool for the job.

Well, it'd be pretty weird if Go-ogle started developing their applications in Swift.

I'd be surprised if they didn't use Swift for their iOS apps.

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#69

Post by gegenschall » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:06 PM UTC

josu wrote: post #59

NateDad wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go is not really a "Google" technology. It's just a programming language like any other. There's no reason Apple shouldn't use it, if it's the right tool for the job.

Well, it'd be pretty weird if Go-ogle started developing their applications in Swift.

They might actually do that: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/google-inc./id281956209

Re: Apple might be running a web crawler written in Go

#70

Post by Dewie » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:35 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #41

antimagic wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swift was designed to do everything - one language to rule them all. To quote from Apple's Swift page: "Swift is a successor to the C and Objective-C languages." My guess would be that the webcrawler was started before Swift was allowed to escape from the Developer Tools enclave.

Doing everything is not the same as doing everything well. Surely you agree that languages designed with one purpose in mind (a la Go and networking/server development) can reasonably do better at that purpose than an explicitly general-purpose language? Just to be clear, I prefer Swift to Go in general. However, between the two, I would personally prefer to use Go for the development of network utilities.

> Surely you agree that languages designed with one purpose in mind (a la Go and networking/server development) can reasonably do better at that purpose than an explicitly general-purpose language?

I don't think that's a given. Just because a language is more special-purpose, doesn't mean that a more general purpose language can do the same things as seamlessly as in the other language (maybe they would have to define an embedded DSL, but that might be simple). Maybe the special-purpose language decided to commit to certain things in its domain - like certain concurrency features - and make it "first class", since that was its intended domain. But then maybe that concurrency feature wasn't that useful and a more general purpose language - which had to keep its options open since it was general purpose - could express other alternative features more easily.