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Why We Switched from Python to Go (2021)

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Re: Why We Switched from Python to Go (2021)

#101

Post by KronisLV »

uhtred wrote: post #86
atx42 wrote: post #52

I think Go and Angular should have died, and would already be footnotes in programming history if they had not been introduced by Google. Let's make procedural programming great again? I get it, you can compile it and it has concurrency, but there's better alternatives in my mind, unfortunately not as popular.

Go should have died?! didn't Go come out like yesterday? This is why I am hesitant to invest time in new hot thing languages. I swear in 20 years everything important will still be written in C, PHP, Perl, C#, Java, Python (how could I forget JavaScript).

> Go should have died?! didn't Go come out like yesterday? This is why I am hesitant to invest time in new hot thing languages.

Actually it came out about 10 years ago, in one way or another: https://go.dev/doc/devel/release So it largely depends on what timescales you're comfortable with - some people switch stacks or learn new tech every 3-5 years, for others this cycle is slower or faster, also depending on the stuff you're working with.

I'd say that web dev moves quickly, embedded moves more slowly, the rest is somewhere in the middle for the most part, maybe AI/ML and certain DevOps aspects rival web dev speeds of innovation/churn.

> I swear in 20 years everything important will still be written in C, PHP, Perl, C#, Java, Python (how could I forget JavaScript).

Perhaps, i think languages like Rust will be pretty widespread, both in the Linux kernel, as well as many tools and whatnot, albeit in a different and perhaps more conservative fashion than currently (the "rewrite everything in Rust" craze). In contrast, most of the modern web based SaaS solutions will be dead, most certainly the majority of Kubernetes tooling out there.

Go might just be boring and useful enough to stick around and join the dreadful bunch of languages used in maintaining legacy code. It's funny, though, because while the languages themselves are more usable than they were 10 years ago, people's sentiments (including mine) are largely influenced by how many bad codebases they have to maintain: https://earthly.dev/blog/brown-green-language/

On an unrelated note, it would be pretty cool to have extremely slowly moving and stable languages, projects and tooling out there. To see maybe 3 or 4 releases in my entire lifetime and to have the next generation take over the burden. Then again, seeing how COBOL and FORTRAN are now, perhaps that sense of grandeur isn't worth the effort and old projects should just die.

Re: Why We Switched from Python to Go (2021)

#102

Post by bloblaw »

uhtred wrote: post #86
atx42 wrote: post #52

I think Go and Angular should have died, and would already be footnotes in programming history if they had not been introduced by Google. Let's make procedural programming great again? I get it, you can compile it and it has concurrency, but there's better alternatives in my mind, unfortunately not as popular.

Go should have died?! didn't Go come out like yesterday? This is why I am hesitant to invest time in new hot thing languages. I swear in 20 years everything important will still be written in C, PHP, Perl, C#, Java, Python (how could I forget JavaScript).

Go was released in 2009, which is 13 years ago. Many companies have built significant portions of their stacks on top of Go....Twitch, Google, Uber, Lyft, Amazon, etc.

It's widely used in industry and isn't going anywhere.

Re: Why We Switched from Python to Go (2021)

#104

Post by IshKebab »

mixedCase wrote: post #32
8organicbits wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> #5 Fast compile time... which is an advantage over Python how exactly? Compiled code can have fewer runtime errors, that's a big win. I read this as golang is better than python because it's compiled and golang is better than Java and C++ because the compiler is fast.

The advantage then is "the type system", not "fast compile time". And as far as type systems go, Go is one of the worst in mainstream usage.

But still better than Python's.

Re: Why We Switched from Python to Go (2021)

#106

Post by uhtred »

KronisLV wrote: post #101
uhtred wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go should have died?! didn't Go come out like yesterday? This is why I am hesitant to invest time in new hot thing languages. I swear in 20 years everything important will still be written in C, PHP, Perl, C#, Java, Python (how could I forget JavaScript).

> Go should have died?! didn't Go come out like yesterday? This is why I am hesitant to invest time in new hot thing languages. Actually it came out about 10 years ago, in one way or another: https://go.dev/doc/devel/release So it largely depends on what timescales you're comfortable with - some people switch stacks or learn new tech every 3-5 years, for others this cycle is slower or faster, also depending on the st…

> On an unrelated note, it would be pretty cool to have extremely slowly moving and stable languages, projects and tooling out there. To see maybe 3 or 4 releases in my entire lifetime and to have the next generation take over the burden. Then again, seeing how COBOL and FORTRAN are now, perhaps that sense of grandeur isn't worth the effort and old projects should just die.

Isn't that Perl?

Re: Why We Switched from Python to Go (2021)

#107

Post by wiz21c »

caymanjim wrote: post #55
ranjanprj wrote: post #18

I read somewhere on HackerNews that Python is kinda like a default language and rest such as Go, C, C++, Java are just for Optimization, once you figure out your solution.

Python is a pretty terrible language to work with. Tooling sucks. Dependency conflicts are common. There's no test framework/runner worth a damn. Web frameworks are inferior to those in most other languages. If you're doing data science things, it's hard to beat pandas/numpy. I get that those are popular in that community because the barrier to entry with Python is low. People who are just looking for a tool to solve…

For the little data sciences like statistics and mildly complex ML, R is really good. At least for data exploration. The REPL/emacs combo I use is much better than python/jupyter. By better I mean it's far more productive to test ideas, compute statistics, charts, etc. Unfortunately R programs I write are not as structured as python programs. I wouldn't like to maintain that kind of code for a long time, nor would I build big applications in R.

Re: Why We Switched from Python to Go (2021)

#108

Post by bloblaw »

claytonjy wrote: post #27
ranjanprj wrote: post #18

I read somewhere on HackerNews that Python is kinda like a default language and rest such as Go, C, C++, Java are just for Optimization, once you figure out your solution.

I don't know who coined it but I love the term "second-best language for everything" when describing python. The ecosystem is so broad you can almost always find tools to do whatever you need, and it lets folks jump between domains simply by knowing the language.

Oh, that's a great way to put it. I'm stealing that :)

Re: Why We Switched from Python to Go (2021)

#109

Post by dgb23 »

uhtred wrote: post #86
atx42 wrote: post #52

I think Go and Angular should have died, and would already be footnotes in programming history if they had not been introduced by Google. Let's make procedural programming great again? I get it, you can compile it and it has concurrency, but there's better alternatives in my mind, unfortunately not as popular.

Go should have died?! didn't Go come out like yesterday? This is why I am hesitant to invest time in new hot thing languages. I swear in 20 years everything important will still be written in C, PHP, Perl, C#, Java, Python (how could I forget JavaScript).

There is plenty of important stuff written in this generation's languages like Go, Clojure, Rust, Typescript and so on. You might be relying on some of them.

Re: Why We Switched from Python to Go (2021)

#110

Post by wiz21c »

bloblaw wrote: post #97
atx42 wrote: post #52

I think Go and Angular should have died, and would already be footnotes in programming history if they had not been introduced by Google. Let's make procedural programming great again? I get it, you can compile it and it has concurrency, but there's better alternatives in my mind, unfortunately not as popular.

Go is successful because it has many appealing features: 1. trivial cross-compilation 2. native multi-threading (eg no GIL or multi-process hacks) that is easy to take advantage of 3. fast. An order of magnitude faster than Python in many cases. 4. easy to deploy. Most often just a single binary I like Go because once I compile it, I can ship that binary anywhere and it will run. I like Python for a great number of t…

How fast is it compared to rust ? Do you know.

I ask because I've started a side project in rust because all of its guarantees were appealing to me (I don't want to spend too much time on bugs, and my code uses some threads). I also need maximum performances. So I've chosen it. But now I have my compilation times that reach 45 seconds, so I'm slowly wondering if the go balance (towards fast compilation) would not be more advantageous; unless of course, performances are real bad...

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