A Proposal for Adding Generics to Go • Hacker News Board

Re: A Proposal for Adding Generics to Go

#21

Post by egeozcan » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

skrtskrt wrote: post #14

kitkat_new wrote: post #8

I hope at some point they manage to add it. I, however, discovered Rust in the meanwhile. It has generics. And it is not too complex either and has quite a few other bonuses.

I like Go, but I too in the meantime have dipped my toes into Rust and it's just so much better without being that much more complex. The learning curve is real but quite a bit overstated I think.

There's this common belief that "rust is too hard", which used to be actually true, but the docs and the language itself came a long way since those times.

I'd say: If you can code in C#/TS (or anything like) + go, then it only depends if you have a free weekend.

Re: A Proposal for Adding Generics to Go

#22

Post by jeremyjh » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

tschellenbach wrote: post #11

We have a very large Go codebase here at Stream and not having generics is just not really as big of an issue as you think it is. There are plenty of work arounds if you get used to not having generics in the language. The fast compile times of Go are amazing. I was doing some Kotlin a few weeks ago and the difference is crazy. Go: Install deps, compile everything done in 5s. Doing the same in Kotlin, laptop freezes,…

What is the workaround for having a nice ORM library?

Re: A Proposal for Adding Generics to Go

#23

Post by DaiPlusPlus » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

hackyhacky wrote: post #6

As much as I've cursed the lack of generics and the limited expressiveness of Go's type system, it's hard for me to reconcile these proposals with what I know of Go. Go was conceived as a small language, a successor to C, and purposely eschewed "new-fangled" features of modern languages. Whether the result is good is a matter of taste, but I feel that retroactively bolting on a modern type system will simultaneously…

Any successor to C needs to be type-safe. Generics make that easier.

Re: A Proposal for Adding Generics to Go

#24

Post by hackyhacky » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #23

hackyhacky wrote: post #6

As much as I've cursed the lack of generics and the limited expressiveness of Go's type system, it's hard for me to reconcile these proposals with what I know of Go. Go was conceived as a small language, a successor to C, and purposely eschewed "new-fangled" features of modern languages. Whether the result is good is a matter of taste, but I feel that retroactively bolting on a modern type system will simultaneously…

Any successor to C needs to be type-safe. Generics make that easier.

Why? C isn't type-safe.

Re: A Proposal for Adding Generics to Go

#25

Post by jacques_chester » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

tschellenbach wrote: post #11

We have a very large Go codebase here at Stream and not having generics is just not really as big of an issue as you think it is. There are plenty of work arounds if you get used to not having generics in the language. The fast compile times of Go are amazing. I was doing some Kotlin a few weeks ago and the difference is crazy. Go: Install deps, compile everything done in 5s. Doing the same in Kotlin, laptop freezes,…

If we're dealing in anecdata, mine is that "Go compiles fast!" is true right up until something in your dependency tree hauls in kubernetes repos, perhaps multiple times. Thanks the "first principles" design of go mod, that's becoming increasingly unavoidable.

Kotlin does compile much slower than I would like, but at least I only haul in one version of libraries and 0% of it is generated code. Java is basically instant for me on the same codebases.

Re: A Proposal for Adding Generics to Go

#26

Post by lkramer » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:25 PM UTC

tschellenbach wrote: post #11

We have a very large Go codebase here at Stream and not having generics is just not really as big of an issue as you think it is. There are plenty of work arounds if you get used to not having generics in the language. The fast compile times of Go are amazing. I was doing some Kotlin a few weeks ago and the difference is crazy. Go: Install deps, compile everything done in 5s. Doing the same in Kotlin, laptop freezes,…

This is not the first time I argue this case, but I would go a step further and say that not having generics is feature of Go.

There are plenty of languages out there with Generics. I use several of them. I use Go when that suits me, and it's typically for cases where high readability trumps doing a lot of magic with generics. I think only once or twice have I thought to myself, "this would have been better with Generics".

Re: A Proposal for Adding Generics to Go

#27

Post by konart » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:25 PM UTC

jeremyjh wrote: post #22

tschellenbach wrote: post #11

We have a very large Go codebase here at Stream and not having generics is just not really as big of an issue as you think it is. There are plenty of work arounds if you get used to not having generics in the language. The fast compile times of Go are amazing. I was doing some Kotlin a few weeks ago and the difference is crazy. Go: Install deps, compile everything done in 5s. Doing the same in Kotlin, laptop freezes,…

What is the workaround for having a nice ORM library?

Not using an ORM.

Re: A Proposal for Adding Generics to Go

#28

Post by cratermoon » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:25 PM UTC

I look forward to generics in Go. Yes, it's possible to do it with reflection, interfaces and interface{}, but it's not typesafe, it's not fast, and it's prone to code bloat.

I'm a fairly late-comer to generics, I never programmed seriously in C++, I avoided generics in Java initially, and I wrote a lot of code in less statically-typed languages. Ever since the first serious talk of generics in Go 2.0 I've endeavored to educate myself and I now am very strongly in favor of them.

Re: A Proposal for Adding Generics to Go

#29

Post by hackyhacky » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:26 PM UTC

kitkat_new wrote: post #18

hackyhacky wrote: post #6

As much as I've cursed the lack of generics and the limited expressiveness of Go's type system, it's hard for me to reconcile these proposals with what I know of Go. Go was conceived as a small language, a successor to C, and purposely eschewed "new-fangled" features of modern languages. Whether the result is good is a matter of taste, but I feel that retroactively bolting on a modern type system will simultaneously…

The lack of generics makes it only more complex. Simplicity: yes, but in a senseful manner. Omitting generics is not senseful to me.

I agree. But if you like generics, why not use a language that already has them, e.g. Rust, Haskell, etc.

Re: A Proposal for Adding Generics to Go

#30

Post by DaiPlusPlus » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:26 PM UTC

hackyhacky wrote: post #24

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any successor to C needs to be type-safe. Generics make that easier.

Why? C isn't type-safe.

C doesn’t lack safety by-design - it’s hobbled by its history and constraints imposed by its userbase - otherwise C would have major breaking changes more often.