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Why Go is doomed to succeed

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Re: Why Go is doomed to succeed

#171

Post by mst »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #121
tptacek wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this was true, and not a just-so story, then it should be easy to point to several well-known open source projects that started out in Golang and ended up in some other language, or several concepts that were prototyped in Golang and then ported over to some other language. Like every programming language ever, there are surely many Golang users who've used it solely to add a keyword to their resume. That's not a…

Let's not do SEO in HN comments. The language's name is "Go", not "Golang".

It's also useful for e.g. using Ctrl-F on your own comments or similar. Searchability optimisation can be valuable on its own.

Re: Why Go is doomed to succeed

#172

Post by davidw »

ilurk wrote: post #86

I'm curious about two things. (1) where does Rust fit in this? (2) and if Go is lacking in the concurrency department and loses to Erlang in latency. Why don't people use Erlang/Elixir for servers and Python/etc for client side?

> Why don't people use Erlang/Elixir

Because Erlang is different. It's not just the syntax, even though that throws many people uncomfortable with much that's not a direct descendant of C syntax; it's the whole programming model which requires a real shift in perspective that simply isn't easy.

It's worth it once you start to "get it", but that can take a bit.

I do think Elixir gives the Erlang VM a better shot at the big time, because it lessens the syntax obstacle for many people.

Re: Why Go is doomed to succeed

#173

Post by serge2k »

Animats wrote: post #154

It's very clear what Go is for. Go is for the kind of stuff Google runs on their servers. C++ is too complex, too unsafe, and too hard to maintain, and Python is too slow. (Remember that "slow" at that scale means "we have to add another acre of servers.") Go is an OK language for server-side stuff. It's not perfect. The concurrency isn't as airtight as its proponents originally claimed. Reflection and type "interfac…

> C++ is too complex, too unsafe, and too hard to maintain, and Python is too slow. (Remember that "slow" at that scale means "we have to add another acre of servers.")

Which is why Java gets used instead.

Re: Why Go is doomed to succeed

#174

Post by Artemis2 »

justinhj wrote: post #55

This article seems to suggest that Go was designed as a language for large teams. Firstly it was designed as an research project and secondly I don't think it does work for large teams. The simple type system and lack of genetics makes code verbose. The dependency system seems to require everyone is on the bleeding edge, correct me if I'm wrong. The channel based concurrency is very elegant but appears to be too coar…

Go is not about research in the sense of inventing new things. The holy designers of Go (Ken Thompson, Rob Pike, Russ Cox) have clearly stated that Go only borrows from other languages (C, SmallTalk...). The goal is not to reinvent the wheel in a new, confusing language, but rather to put together parts that have been thoroughly tested. They make sense together and the result is a boring language that is made to be used.

Re: Why Go is doomed to succeed

#175

Post by justthistime_ »

tptacek wrote: post #87
api wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article hits on this but doesn't bring up Google's high turnover rate. Google is a resume tick box. Go over to AngelList and look at lists of startups. Take a drink every time you see 'worked at Google' listed as a qualification. You'll be destroyed in an hour or so. Thus people get jobs at Google, put in a year or two, and go off for a higher paying and/or sexier job or a startup of their own. Go is laser focuse…

If this was true, and not a just-so story, then it should be easy to point to several well-known open source projects that started out in Golang and ended up in some other language, or several concepts that were prototyped in Golang and then ported over to some other language. Like every programming language ever, there are surely many Golang users who've used it solely to add a keyword to their resume. That's not a…

I think people who use Go in the first place are not those who think much about "can this be done in a better way?".

It's quite similar to the notion of "I'm a PHP developer and I don't understand why everyone says it is terribly designed! I learned to work with it and never tried anything else, so it can't be that bad!!!".

Not every developer cares about software development. There are plenty of people who chose this profession after they heard that a random developer can become the next Bill Gates by writing the right iOS app.

Having a language which doesn't require an inexperienced and non-interested developer to reflect on all the lessons learned in the last 40 years of software development and computer science fits the bill of this kind of person pretty well.

Sure, he/she is missing out on 4 decades of improvements to this profession, but who cares? Despite all the medical advances, there is still an economic niche for quacks selling "cosmic crystals" to cure your cancer.

There is nothing wrong with this. People don't pick a job in finance, because "they like to work with numbers" either.

We should just be aware of it.

Re: Why Go is doomed to succeed

#176

Post by kasey_junk »

tptacek wrote: post #87
api wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article hits on this but doesn't bring up Google's high turnover rate. Google is a resume tick box. Go over to AngelList and look at lists of startups. Take a drink every time you see 'worked at Google' listed as a qualification. You'll be destroyed in an hour or so. Thus people get jobs at Google, put in a year or two, and go off for a higher paying and/or sexier job or a startup of their own. Go is laser focuse…

If this was true, and not a just-so story, then it should be easy to point to several well-known open source projects that started out in Golang and ended up in some other language, or several concepts that were prototyped in Golang and then ported over to some other language. Like every programming language ever, there are surely many Golang users who've used it solely to add a keyword to their resume. That's not a…

A team might pick golang to check a box. Particularly the "our boss/organization/PR team wanted it" box.

I largely dislike Go but keep picking it because it is the lowest common denominator of languages my team will use and I really like them.

Even the proponents of Go on my team are moving away from it as their preferred choice, but for now it remains the only consensus fallback.

Re: Why Go is doomed to succeed

#177

Post by giovannibajo1 »

andyidsinga wrote: post #153

this: > Go won’t let you abstract yourself in the foot. aside from being amusing -- I like this, but can anyone confirm its true in practice with Go?

In my experience, Go makes it hard to write libraries in the STL/C++ sense (that is, reusable abstractions), while making it very easy to write libraries in the "batteries" sense. So yes I think the metaphore is correct

Re: Why Go is doomed to succeed

#178

Post by chadscira »

BuckRogers wrote: post #147

"TL;DR Golang was explicitly engineered to thrive in projects built by large groups of programmers with different skill levels, and there is no larger such group than the open source community." This would almost be right, but Go has much poorer language interop than C due to the GC and non-C compatible ABI. This means unless we're going to a monoculture of GoAllTheThings (not likely), Go will never succeed C as bein…

Swift has an interesting situation. Within 6 months of its beta release it was already being used to publish iOS & OSX apps.

With it also being open source, and ported to other platforms I can imagine other mobile operating systems also embracing the language in hopes to get more developer traction.

Not to mention that they have taken a little from every language, and server-side swift is a whole different beast.

This is going to be fun ;)

Re: Why Go is doomed to succeed

#179

Post by reagency »

Animats wrote: post #154

It's very clear what Go is for. Go is for the kind of stuff Google runs on their servers. C++ is too complex, too unsafe, and too hard to maintain, and Python is too slow. (Remember that "slow" at that scale means "we have to add another acre of servers.") Go is an OK language for server-side stuff. It's not perfect. The concurrency isn't as airtight as its proponents originally claimed. Reflection and type "interfac…

Does Google use Go in any high-load services?

Re: Why Go is doomed to succeed

#180

Post by [deleted] »

gamesbrainiac wrote: post #6

> TL;DR Golang was explicitly engineered to thrive in projects built by large groups of programmers with different skill levels, and there is no larger such group than the open source community. Very true. This article hits the nail on the head. Most people say that they cannot "express" certain things in go, or have to jump through hoops to do it. The point of go is not to create a highly expressive language, but ra…

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