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Why people in Google hate Go?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Why people in Google hate Go?

#41

Post by pjmlp »

jjgreen wrote: post #5

Go puzzles me. It's slower than C/C++/Rust and GCed, so not really suited for performance critical stuff. No OO so not really suited for larger complex applications. So for smaller not-performance-critical programs, why not Python, Typescript etc? It seems that its popularity exceeds its scope, or am I missing something?

Docker (originally written in Java until Go advocates took over), and k8s are what made it popular.

Now it is kind of unavoidable in DevOps space for some cenarios.

My only complaint is their approach to language design.

Inferno with Limbo, Android, Windows Phone, show that there is GC hate, and shipping products to millions of users.

Re: Why people in Google hate Go?

#42

Post by ReflectedImage »

destevil wrote: post #4

Go isn't a serious language for large systems. The language allows writing shitty code and the community has largely adopted that. Go fanatics will hate this, but you simply can't compare it with the ability to write and maintain in languages like Java.

OOP languages like Java are not considered to be good.

Re: Why people in Google hate Go?

#43

Post by narinxas »

jjgreen wrote: post #33
amelius wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same can be said about Rust: its popularity exceeds its scope, because 99% of applications I see that are written in Rust are better off written in a GCed language.

As fast as C but with correctness, Rust kind-of owns that space (not a big fan personally).

what about Zig?

I think they're a strong contender... it's somehow simpler than Rust

then again the correctness guarantee may be weaker??

Re: Why people in Google hate Go?

#44

Post by carb »

guntherhermann wrote: post #7
destevil wrote: post #4

Go isn't a serious language for large systems. The language allows writing shitty code and the community has largely adopted that. Go fanatics will hate this, but you simply can't compare it with the ability to write and maintain in languages like Java.

Can you give an example of 'shitty code'? We've got murmurs of Go being adopted by some teams so if you have first hand experience it'd be really useful

As a counter anecdote, I've worked at two large companies with monsterous Go codebases and they are totally fine to maintain. There is no justification to the claim that Java repos are "easier to maintain" by the above commenter, as we have decade-old Go codebases that doing great.

I'm just as fast/productive in Go (8 years of experience) as I am in Python (13 years of experience), but the resulting code is:

    * more maintainable (enforced typing vs typehints+mypy)

    * faster (compiled vs interpreted)

    * consistently structured / opinionated (until recently we didn't have generics, which meant that engineers often had to do things the "boring and verbose way" instead of the "clever and concise way" which, though frustrating short-term, has proven to be much better for maintainability long-term.
There's no reason that your company can't support multiple languages. Uber has large Go monorepos, Java monorepos, Python monorepos, etc. and they all work in harmony and with different requirements.

Re: Why people in Google hate Go?

#45

Post by dontlaugh »

destevil wrote: post #4

Go isn't a serious language for large systems. The language allows writing shitty code and the community has largely adopted that. Go fanatics will hate this, but you simply can't compare it with the ability to write and maintain in languages like Java.

Java also has null and overall a weak type system. They're pretty close in that respect, actually.

Re: Why people in Google hate Go?

#46

Post by pjmlp »

ycuser2 wrote: post #22
brigadier132 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except when you suddenly do need performance and predictable latency but all your software is written in python. Its always funny how these performance requirements just creep up on you like that.

C# is GCed but has 'unsafe' blocks.

Alonside value types, manual memory allocation if needed.

Not all GC based languages are made alike.

Re: Why people in Google hate Go?

#47

Post by usrbinbash »

jjgreen wrote: post #5

Go puzzles me. It's slower than C/C++/Rust and GCed, so not really suited for performance critical stuff. No OO so not really suited for larger complex applications. So for smaller not-performance-critical programs, why not Python, Typescript etc? It seems that its popularity exceeds its scope, or am I missing something?

> so not really suited for performance critical stuff.

What "stuff" is that exactly? Because Go is designed primarily for backend services and microservices. Considering how much backend software is powered by Python, Java, or *retching sounds* PHP, I highly doubt that is a major consideration in that area.

And even when performance actually does matter to an extend where it becomes a more pressing issue than network latency, Go code performs incredibly well and is more than a match for most requirements.

> No OO

How do you figure? I can write in a completely object oriented style in Go. Also, OO is not a prerequisite for large complex systems, and quite often strict adherence to it can make code much harder to maintain than it needs to be. Maintaining large complex systems requires, first and foremost, code that is easy to grok and maintain. And regarding that particular area, Go runs circles around any major contemporary language, including Python.

> It seems that its popularity exceeds its scope

Considering how widespread it is by now, I highly doubt that.

Re: Why people in Google hate Go?

#49

Post by pjmlp »

narinxas wrote: post #43
jjgreen wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As fast as C but with correctness, Rust kind-of owns that space (not a big fan personally).

what about Zig? I think they're a strong contender... it's somehow simpler than Rust then again the correctness guarantee may be weaker??

Still no story for UAF, and the community is against shipping binary libraries.

Re: Why people in Google hate Go?

#50

Post by rplnt »

jjgreen wrote: post #5

Go puzzles me. It's slower than C/C++/Rust and GCed, so not really suited for performance critical stuff. No OO so not really suited for larger complex applications. So for smaller not-performance-critical programs, why not Python, Typescript etc? It seems that its popularity exceeds its scope, or am I missing something?

It's fast enough for most applications. Python and Typescript are unmaintanable. Everything around them breaks as the time goes by. I'd argue Python is not suitable for anything that spans more than one file or one week. I don't have enough experience wtih Typescript to hate it as much, but I know I spend most of my time fighting with the tooling. Again, unless you are writing a fresh application that is fine to throw away after a year, Typescript is not it.

Go excels in that it is so simple. As the saying goes, you mostly read code, not write it. Go is very easy to understand and review. Which is what you do mostly when working on complex systems in teams. It's extremely easy (and fast) to build and deploy unlike the languages above. That's why companies use go. Not for personal projects, not for drivers, and also probably not for corporate monoliths that require a suit and a tie to contribute.

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