The Generic Dilemma in Go
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The Generic Dilemma in Go
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Re: The Generic Dilemma in Go
#2It's worth noting that "slow compilation" often translates directly into "slow programmers".
Re: The Generic Dilemma in Go
#3Where does the Haskell type system fit into his description?
Re: The Generic Dilemma in Go
#4Where does the Haskell type system fit into his description?
If you ever use GHC, you'll notice how slowly it compiles. However, this dilemma (trilemma?) is a false one. You can have unboxed (in relevant cases) generics in a language that compiles faster than C++ with full-blown templates. C# and Ada come to mind.
Re: The Generic Dilemma in Go
#5Where does the Haskell type system fit into his description?
There are a whole host of ways that Haskell supports (or has been extended to support) generic programming. There's a big overview here:
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Research_papers/Generics
In the simplest case, generic programming in Haskell is done using type classes (similar to OO "interfaces"), often with the GHC extension for derivable type classes. If I understand correctly, this is generally implemented by implicitly passing a table of type information to the generic function at runtime, though I believe that compilers are able to optimize this away at compile time in some (most?) cases.
I'm not sure how well any of this would apply to Go, which doesn't have Haskell's type system.
Re: The Generic Dilemma in Go
#6It was my understanding that the Go language is still a moving target; the something closer to the final language spec should be known before discussing what it is missing.
Re: The Generic Dilemma in Go
#7It was my understanding that the Go language is still a moving target; the something closer to the final language spec should be known before discussing what it is missing.
This post is by Russ Cox, one of the designers of Go. He's asking for input into the design process.
Re: The Generic Dilemma in Go
#8Where does the Haskell type system fit into his description?
If you ever use GHC, you'll notice how slowly it compiles. However, this dilemma (trilemma?) is a false one. You can have unboxed (in relevant cases) generics in a language that compiles faster than C++ with full-blown templates. C# and Ada come to mind.
Ada in particular escapes this burden by requiring explicit generic instantiation, so at least you know how many of them you're dealing with.
Re: The Generic Dilemma in Go
#9The rest of Cox's posts are also great reads.
Re: The Generic Dilemma in Go
#10I wish we could get back to using "Go" as a reference to the board game.