Go is amazing, period. • Hacker News Board

Re: Go is amazing, period.

#31

Post by rian » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 4:36 AM UTC

i truly believe go contributes negative work to society. it's basically C/C++/Java/C# with syntactic sugar except it's different enough to get bored programmers to waste their precious time reporting all their code.

if you want to learn a new language, actually learn a new language. learn a language that's actually breaking the mold in terms of how we communicate with computers. think at a higher abstraction level than dynamic dispatch and composable objects and subroutines, that stuff is already more than 40 years old.

http://www.thocp.net/biographies/papers/backus_turingaward_l...

Re: Go is amazing, period.

#32

Post by drivebyacct2 » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 4:38 AM UTC

tpsreport wrote: post #17

Here's a summary of the article: * author cannot write portable C sockets code * author cannot handle C/C++ * author believes his app would be too slow in Python, later abandons App, but retains his bias against Python * Go has no parens for if/for * Go has unicode support * Go has closures "like salt shakers" * Go is cohesively designed * Go has nice libraries Go may or may not be a good language, but this kind of a…

So, a developer likes that list of things and it fits their project. Your comment offers nothing as a counter to choosing Go in such a situation. Your comment literally brings nothing to the discussion except a tl;dr for anyone who chose to not read it (if you didn't, go read it)

I mean, if I want to write a cross platform websocket server signaling server for PeerConnection, what would you recommend that will let me write a statically typed server in 80 lines of code that's all standard libraries? (edit: Websockets was moved to a `go install`able package recently)

Re: Go is amazing, period.

#33

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 4:39 AM UTC

rian wrote: post #31

i truly believe go contributes negative work to society. it's basically C/C++/Java/C# with syntactic sugar except it's different enough to get bored programmers to waste their precious time reporting all their code. if you want to learn a new language, actually learn a new language. learn a language that's actually breaking the mold in terms of how we communicate with computers. think at a higher abstraction level th…

[deleted]

Re: Go is amazing, period.

#34

Post by srean » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 4:40 AM UTC

I have'nt managed enough time yet to familiarize myself with Go, but the little that I have glanced at, it seems a nice enough language for scientific computation. The syntax and semantics of arrays are nice and binding to C is purportedly simple. Ease of binding with Fortran would have been nice too. So I find it a bit strange that I never hear of Go in the context of array based computation, that is the stuff people use Numpy, MATLAB, J, K for.

Is there any particular reason for that or is it just that not many have got around to doing it.

A type-inferred language with first class functions, with strong support for parallelism, and good support for arrays and slicing seems a really sweet deal. Throw in SIMD and it is already very compelling. Is anything wrong with the picture that I am missing. Performance issues ?

Re: Go is amazing, period.

#35

Post by drivebyacct2 » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 4:40 AM UTC

rian wrote: post #31

i truly believe go contributes negative work to society. it's basically C/C++/Java/C# with syntactic sugar except it's different enough to get bored programmers to waste their precious time reporting all their code. if you want to learn a new language, actually learn a new language. learn a language that's actually breaking the mold in terms of how we communicate with computers. think at a higher abstraction level th…

So because it's not revolutionary, it is actually harmful? Sorry, I don't follow at all. Even if it's "better" than C/C++/Java/C# [1], then it's a positive contribution.

[1] I think it's silly to imply that languages are "better" than one another. Some are more apt for certain projects and some have different feature sets that appeal to certain people. Certainly it seems unrealistic to absolutely call a language useless, especially given the points in this articl.

Re: Go is amazing, period.

#36

Post by georgemcbay » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 4:41 AM UTC

As someone who is 38, and has programmed in everything from 6510/68k/MIPS/ARM assembler to C/C++ to ActionScript/haxe/JavaScript to D to Python, et al, I also think Go is pretty great.

In addition to the cool things in the language, I really love what they are doing with the build system. The Go programming I've been doing has been on Windows but targeting an ARM CPU (the PXA168 in the Chumby 8 device) and cross-compiling Go code requires simply setting a couple of environmental variables. Sooo much nicer than having to set up a full-on GNU-style cross-compiling setup and using different toolchains for all your different targets.

eg:

set GOOS=windows

set GOARCH=386

go build

Just built my project for Windows x86.

---

set GOOS=windows

set GOARCH=amd64

go build

Just built my project for Windows x64

---

set GOOS=linux

set GOARCH=ARM

set GOARM=5

go build

Just built my project for the Chumby device.

---

I highly recommend checking Go out and looking past any of the superficial allergies you have to it (I'm historically a braces-on-their-own-line guy, so getting used to the strict enforcement of the other style was a pain for me) and giving it at least a few weeks to sink in. If it still isn't your cup of tea after that, then that's fine, but it is well worth a look, IMO.

Re: Go is amazing, period.

#37

Post by olefoo » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 4:41 AM UTC

swah wrote: post #6

I'd love to have Python library availability in a staticly typed language.

You should look at the work on pypy; specifically the RPython subset of python. It uses type hinting for static type analysis for the JIT compiler. It's not as hardcore as a fully statically typed language like ML or C but it will catch mistakes in mixing types.

See http://doc.pypy.org/en/latest/rtyper.html

Re: Go is amazing, period.

#38

Post by jshen » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 4:42 AM UTC

rian wrote: post #31

i truly believe go contributes negative work to society. it's basically C/C++/Java/C# with syntactic sugar except it's different enough to get bored programmers to waste their precious time reporting all their code. if you want to learn a new language, actually learn a new language. learn a language that's actually breaking the mold in terms of how we communicate with computers. think at a higher abstraction level th…

I completely disagree. My goal is to build better systems, and if an evolutionary change helps this, then that's where I'm going.

You seem to value "breaking the mold" for the sake of "breaking the mold" Or, you didn't give a good reason to value it.

"that stuff is already more than 40 years old.". Is this the fashion industry? Or do you believe that quality is a function of age?

Re: Go is amazing, period.

#39

Post by njharman » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 4:47 AM UTC

jshen wrote: post #38

rian wrote: post #31

i truly believe go contributes negative work to society. it's basically C/C++/Java/C# with syntactic sugar except it's different enough to get bored programmers to waste their precious time reporting all their code. if you want to learn a new language, actually learn a new language. learn a language that's actually breaking the mold in terms of how we communicate with computers. think at a higher abstraction level th…

I completely disagree. My goal is to build better systems, and if an evolutionary change helps this, then that's where I'm going. You seem to value "breaking the mold" for the sake of "breaking the mold" Or, you didn't give a good reason to value it. "that stuff is already more than 40 years old.". Is this the fashion industry? Or do you believe that quality is a function of age?

I agree with your goal. But the parent is correct in that learning a really different language will help you become a better developer and thus build better systems.

Re: Go is amazing, period.

#40

Post by joe_the_user » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 4:52 AM UTC

Hmm,

The complaint I see here seem to be about c/c++ libraries. TL;DR; c is too level and boost sucks (ie, is too complexified).

Go sounds like one fine answer to this. I would claim that c++ with QT is another answer to this. Write parsers for DSLs quickly and easily with QT - its container classes work without nightmarish overtemplating, its string class is like an ordinary class, etc.