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Why is Golang popular in China?

herman.asia

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Re: Why is Golang popular in China?

#61

Post by tbg »

higherpurpose wrote: post #3

> Dave Cheney pointed out on Reddit that he is under the impression that Go is popular in China for its usefulness in writing programs for rooted Android phones. Interesting. It seems Go really is preferred to Java, if given the choice. I hope Google seriously considers making Go the main programming language for Android in the next few years. Other than having to rewrite all the old and new APIs (in parallel with th…

google is working on a new compiler for android http://tools.android.com/tech-docs/jackandjill that will convert java code into dex. I don't see Go replacing Java for android anytime soon, if they had plans they would probably not invest in this new toolchain.

Re: Why is Golang popular in China?

#62

Post by fhars »

hamstergene wrote: post #56
Mr_P wrote: post #4

Could it be because golang supports unicode identifiers? For non-native English speakers, it must be more difficult to program in ASCII-based languages, right?

Certainly not for that reason. Actually, as a non-native English speaker, I consider unicode identifiers one of the most useless features for a language. There are reasons why unicode identifiers have never been widely used, and probably will never be, even though they've been around for more than a decade: 1. You're unlikely to be allowed to use them. Unicode identifiers stagger international collaboration. Do you w…

Actually trying to use hieroglyphical identifiers opens another can of worms, hieroglyphs are located outside of the basic multilingual plane and so tend break even in languages that claim to support unicode identifiers.

Re: Why is Golang popular in China?

#63

Post by tragomaskhalos »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #59
hamstergene wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly not for that reason. Actually, as a non-native English speaker, I consider unicode identifiers one of the most useless features for a language. There are reasons why unicode identifiers have never been widely used, and probably will never be, even though they've been around for more than a decade: 1. You're unlikely to be allowed to use them. Unicode identifiers stagger international collaboration. Do you w…

I agree, but I think we live in an idealist bubble on Hacker News. Some of my freelancing clients maintain a bit of (Unicode free) English-German code. What would you do if you had to write one of the gazillion business software systems we never see here on HN, and you had to codify boring terms like Boolean rightToGiveExtraordinaryNoticeOfTermination (in any other language)? The client/superior has not provided you…

In the early 90's - ie before the internet cemented the hegemony of English in s/w development - some colleagues worked on a codebase that was an international collaboration between the UK, Germany and France. Each nation used their own native language identifiers for variables and functions, and there was a custom preprocessor to translate between them.

The feeling was very much that this was political far more than an aid to the programmers, although of course that was the English-speakers perspective! But it did make working with the code (which was a mess anyway) far more complicated.

Re: Why is Golang popular in China?

#64

Post by Gurkenmaster »

electrum wrote: post #43
desdiv wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every non-trivial programming language released after 2000 supports unicode identifiers[0]. Rust, Python, Ruby, C#, Scala, Clojure, just to name a few, all support unicode identifiers. [0] http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Unicode_variable_names

And older ones such as Java, released in 1995.

Python is actually older than Java and Ruby is roughly as old as Java

Re: Why is Golang popular in China?

#65

Post by dsymonds »

javajosh wrote: post #37

Whoa wait a second, I feel like this is burying the lead: you can write native android apps in go [1]. I feel like that's a very big deal, especially for game companies wanting native speed, and a 'modern' language and toolkit. [1] E.g. http://talks.golang.org/2014/gothamgo-android.slide#1

It's a big deal, but it's not exactly news. It was part of the Go 1.4 release, about a month ago, and also announced well before that on the golang-dev mailing list. Both times it was discussed extensively here on Hacker News too.

Re: Why is Golang popular in China?

#67

Post by patio11 »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #59
hamstergene wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly not for that reason. Actually, as a non-native English speaker, I consider unicode identifiers one of the most useless features for a language. There are reasons why unicode identifiers have never been widely used, and probably will never be, even though they've been around for more than a decade: 1. You're unlikely to be allowed to use them. Unicode identifiers stagger international collaboration. Do you w…

I agree, but I think we live in an idealist bubble on Hacker News. Some of my freelancing clients maintain a bit of (Unicode free) English-German code. What would you do if you had to write one of the gazillion business software systems we never see here on HN, and you had to codify boring terms like Boolean rightToGiveExtraordinaryNoticeOfTermination (in any other language)? The client/superior has not provided you…

There exist a lot of line-of-business Japanese applications which have methods like getKamokuList and getKogaishaList, either because the company didn't have a blessed translation for the noun or, in more than one instance in my career, because two concepts which were distinct in Japanese would have caused a hash collision when translated.

For example, if you do Japanese entrance exams, there exist two ways to say "academic subject": 教科 and 科目. Both of them are most readily translated as "subject", but the first is subject like mathematics is a subject, and the second is a subject like Algebra II is a subject. Make sense? Great.

Rather than littering our code with getSubject and getSubSubject, which was the cleanest English option available, we just went with the transliterations straight in the source code, and said "Look, if we pay your salary, you're going to learn the difference between kamoku and kyouka."

Re: Why is Golang popular in China?

#68

Post by olavk »

hamstergene wrote: post #56
Mr_P wrote: post #4

Could it be because golang supports unicode identifiers? For non-native English speakers, it must be more difficult to program in ASCII-based languages, right?

Certainly not for that reason. Actually, as a non-native English speaker, I consider unicode identifiers one of the most useless features for a language. There are reasons why unicode identifiers have never been widely used, and probably will never be, even though they've been around for more than a decade: 1. You're unlikely to be allowed to use them. Unicode identifiers stagger international collaboration. Do you w…

Still, identifiers in the local language makes sense in some contexts. For example when working with terminology which does not have direct equivalent in English. Eg. some very specific tax-related terms with precise meaning in the local country. In that case translating to some not-quite-equivalent English term will just confuse the matter.

Re: Why is Golang popular in China?

#69

Post by nvader »

techtalsky wrote: post #50
javajosh wrote: post #37

Whoa wait a second, I feel like this is burying the lead: you can write native android apps in go [1]. I feel like that's a very big deal, especially for game companies wanting native speed, and a 'modern' language and toolkit. [1] E.g. http://talks.golang.org/2014/gothamgo-android.slide#1

Thought it might interest you that the term is "burying the lede". One of those weird terms like "champing at the bit" or "eke out a living" that uses a word that sounds like a modern English word but is actually a slightly arcane word. In this case lede is "the introductory section of a news story that is intended to entice the reader to read the full story".

Now I'm curious. I've got 'lede' -> 'lead' and 'champing' -> 'chomping'.

What's the "modern" term in "eke out a living"?

Re: Why is Golang popular in China?

#70

Post by nvader »

nvader wrote: post #69
techtalsky wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thought it might interest you that the term is "burying the lede". One of those weird terms like "champing at the bit" or "eke out a living" that uses a word that sounds like a modern English word but is actually a slightly arcane word. In this case lede is "the introductory section of a news story that is intended to entice the reader to read the full story".

Now I'm curious. I've got 'lede' -> 'lead' and 'champing' -> 'chomping'. What's the "modern" term in "eke out a living"?

Okay, I found it myself. Apparently the word confused for "eke" is "eek". But their meanings are so different to me that I'm having trouble seeing it!
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