Live data from Hacker News

Go is Google's language, not ours

utcc.utoronto.ca

471–480 of 679 posts

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, that I saw a similar pattern like "at first I complained, but as time went on I found some benefits" quite a lot. It can be that your learn a language better, became more comfortable with the way it must be used: say, stopped writing code in Elixir the way your used to write in Python. But the other thing is that it's in our human nature that we tend to look for something positive in bad situations we ex…

The nice thing about walking minefields is learning how to watch your step.

I like this because it could be said seriously or ironically

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm of the mind that it is un-Java like. Whether or not there is a "Java" as a philosophy is not the hill I'm trying to die on. Consider these contrived lines of code: ``` String first = someMethodCall(); var second = someMethodCall(); ``` The first provides more useful information at a glance. I don't see any value in the "nice shorthand." Typing out "SomeStupidClassName" has never once been a material bottleneck in…

> I don't see any value in the "nice shorthand." Typing out "SomeStupidClassName" has never once been a material bottleneck in my 15+ years of programming There are a few rather glaring spots that I've noticed. First, when you're refactoring, you've now got to edit every spot where a variable of that type is created. At the very least, when you're just renaming a class, your IDE can help you, but you still create a l…

It would appear that all of your code quality arguments are "people are too lazy to actually write good code." So it's not clear why you would decry that assertion. I don't have a horse in the race one way or another, but you're not refuting mieseratte's objection.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Java has only things that were proved to work in other languages. But they still somehow keep finding ways to make them not work so well when implemented in Java. C# may move faster, but its design team is also much more methodical about ensuring that new features have good ergonomics. In Java, I tend to feel surrounded by hacks that were hastily slapped on in an effort to keep up with C# and, increasingly, Kotlin.

Idk, have you seen the interfaces with default implementations in latest C#? Also duck typing? Both are mistakes IMO. First missteps I feel like I've seen C# make.

If by "duck typing" you mean dynamic, then I don't know what you're complaining about. It has a very niche set of use cases where it is needed. If people are abusing it then it's on them. There is no good or even alluring reason to use dynamic outside of it's intended purpose, so I don't feel like it's one of those "shiny hut dangerous" features you see in some other languages.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#474

I'm going to risk being labeled an ~incompetent dev~ or whatever but learning golang was seriously a breath of fresh air compared to literally any language I have ever tried to grok before. Everything felt like it was there on purpose. It always seemed like there was a "proper" way to achieve something. Being told to use this opinionated formatter was like removing a 40kg bag after a bush walk. You never have to worr…

> The last thing I personally want to see is Go being handed over to the community to be designed by committee. I'm thankful for exactly that. Go is developed by Bell Labs people, the same people who bought us C, Unix and Plan 9 (Ken, Pike, RSC, et al). They took the time to think through all their decisions, the impacts of said decisions, along with keeping things as simple as possible. Basically, doing things right…

Bell Labs — and ETH Zürich, where Robert Griesemer worked as a PhD student under Niklaus Wirth on Oberon, which had a big influence on Go [1].

The earlier languages that Rob Pike et al were involved with, Limbo and Newsqueak, were also heavily influenced by Wirth.

[1] https://talks.golang.org/2015/gophercon-goevolution.slide#15.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#475
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't Haskell created by a university? That would be more tax dollars than community-driven.

I think Haskell was largely derived from Miranda, a commercial product.

Perhaps 'inspired by', but not 'derived from'.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#476
post #418

Security consultant here. I have audited many codebases in many languages. Go is by far the easiest language to audit: it always looks the same, it's not too verbose, there are no generics or OOP. Coincidentally it's always the most secure as well. My take on this is that it is easier to see logic problems because it is easier to read, understand and reason about. On top of that the standard library does so much for…

I'm curious, how will they end Go itself? My understanding is that they always planned to have generics, they just didn't make 1.0 and now the Go community has sort of adopted the lack of them like a badge of honor. Also, I have no expertise in your field so forgive me if this is a stupid question but wouldn't generics be easier to check over since they allow there to be only one implementation of something for all t…

I think there is generics proposal under discussion.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#477
Can the same sentiment also be shared for Swift/Apple? Or is Swift organized in a way that doesn't have these issues?

Maybe this is just an inherent problem for all company focused languages/frameworks (react, golang, kotlin, etc), and we need a good example of how to make it work for everyone

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'll never forgive the addition of `var` to the language. I'm inexperienced with Java and didn't know this existed until I saw your post. It seems like a nice shorthand to me. Can you explain why you don't like it?

I'm of the mind that it is un-Java like. Whether or not there is a "Java" as a philosophy is not the hill I'm trying to die on. Consider these contrived lines of code: ``` String first = someMethodCall(); var second = someMethodCall(); ``` The first provides more useful information at a glance. I don't see any value in the "nice shorthand." Typing out "SomeStupidClassName" has never once been a material bottleneck in…

Sure, in a contrived example where the return type is not obvious, you perhaps shouldn't use var. What about real world examples where the type is more often than not obvious?

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#479
post #418

Security consultant here. I have audited many codebases in many languages. Go is by far the easiest language to audit: it always looks the same, it's not too verbose, there are no generics or OOP. Coincidentally it's always the most secure as well. My take on this is that it is easier to see logic problems because it is easier to read, understand and reason about. On top of that the standard library does so much for…

Could it be because Go is newer and handles buffer overflows correctly?

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#480
post #407

I'm going to risk being labeled an ~incompetent dev~ or whatever but learning golang was seriously a breath of fresh air compared to literally any language I have ever tried to grok before. Everything felt like it was there on purpose. It always seemed like there was a "proper" way to achieve something. Being told to use this opinionated formatter was like removing a 40kg bag after a bush walk. You never have to worr…

> I'm going to risk being labeled an ~incompetent dev~ Why is that? I thought your comment made a lot of sense.

Because it is standard, in these discussions, for someone to quote Rob Pike to say that golang was designed for the lowest common denominator of developers.

Personally, I like go a lot for writing services and console applications.

Post reply on HN