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Go is Google's language, not ours

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Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#51

Post by oblio »

ncmncm wrote: post #27
airstrike wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java is a footnote?

Not yet. But we can hope. Ten years is a long time in this business.

Core Java systems are being written and updated at: Oracle, Amazon, Google, Netflix, IBM and almost all the Fortune 500 companies.

Java is also used by Facebook, Microsoft, Salesforce, Apple, and many other companies that aren't necessarily known for their Java development.

Java usually is the base for every core banking system that's not old enough to have been written in COBOL (and even those are being migrated to Java in many cases) or hasn't been written from scratch in .NET.

The same Java is also used by governments throughout the world.

If Oracle vanishes completely tomorrow, there's huge incentives for a community initiative to completely take it over ASAP. There's probably tens of billions of dollars in existing code bases that have to be maintained and extended.

More than that, Java's already 23 years old. It's not a new language. Plus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#52

Post by crimsonalucard »

theshrike79 wrote: post #37
pa7ch wrote: post #17

Many like Go because it is an opinionated language. I'm not sure that a 'community' run language will create something like that because there are too many opinions. Many claim to represent the community, but not the community that doesn't share their opinion. Without clear leaders I fear technical direction and taste will be about politics which seems more uncertain/risky. I like that there is a tight cohesive group…

In my opinion the way they are handling adding Generics to Go is proof of this model working. They are actually trying to pick the implementation that solves real world issues, not just trying to tick [x] Generics in the Go spec sheet.

Parametric polymorphism is a real world issue. The fact that it wasn't checked off indicates to me that they are of the opinion that it's not as important.

It's ok to have this opinion, I just disagree with it. I do agree that it's important to think it through, I do not agree that the language should be brought to 1.0 without it.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#53

Post by ephaeton »

Oooph, from my perspective, this is the very same thing with clojure, and the single thing that drove me away from the language. Substitute spec/schema for vgo/dep, and you're telling the same story.

I value individuals and companies sharing their developments with a community. One has to remember though, to own something is different from benefitting from other's work, and if you want to have a say, you'll need to get your hands dirty, fork, and work.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#54

Post by fetbaffe »

cryptos wrote: post #24

Actually there are relatively few real (TM) open source projects driven by the community, at least if you look at important projects. Many open source projects are just commercial projects driven mainly by a single company. Look for example at Redis, MongoDB, MySQL, and Elasticsearch. They follow exactly the model described in the article. Technologies like these could have been developed by a community, too, but it…

For community driven programming languages I would say PHP, large user base, mature & very active.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#55

Post by kmlx »

this is exactly one of the reasons i learned Go in the first place. without the backing of a major corp it’s damn hard to have major success. not impossible, or unheard of, just hard.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#56

Post by nnq »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #52
theshrike79 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion the way they are handling adding Generics to Go is proof of this model working. They are actually trying to pick the implementation that solves real world issues, not just trying to tick [x] Generics in the Go spec sheet.

Parametric polymorphism is a real world issue. The fact that it wasn't checked off indicates to me that they are of the opinion that it's not as important. It's ok to have this opinion, I just disagree with it. I do agree that it's important to think it through, I do not agree that the language should be brought to 1.0 without it.

> Parametric polymorphism is a real world issue.

...what in the world makes you thing that? I love parametric polymorphism, but nothing stops you from writing the most complex computer programs you can imagine without it.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#57

Post by ehsankia »

ipsum2 wrote: post #35
cryptos wrote: post #24

Actually there are relatively few real (TM) open source projects driven by the community, at least if you look at important projects. Many open source projects are just commercial projects driven mainly by a single company. Look for example at Redis, MongoDB, MySQL, and Elasticsearch. They follow exactly the model described in the article. Technologies like these could have been developed by a community, too, but it…

I'm curious what the distinction is between Rust (driven by Mozilla) and Go (driven by Google).

I had a similar question, but rather, what's the difference between Go with Google deciding what goes in, and Python (a year ago) where the BDFL and a couple core devs decide what go in?

Sure you could argue that a company may have different incentives than a BDFL, but in this context, it's not clear that Go would've been more likely to accept the change you're proposing if they weren't being led by Google.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#58

Post by fileeditview »

pa7ch wrote: post #17

Many like Go because it is an opinionated language. I'm not sure that a 'community' run language will create something like that because there are too many opinions. Many claim to represent the community, but not the community that doesn't share their opinion. Without clear leaders I fear technical direction and taste will be about politics which seems more uncertain/risky. I like that there is a tight cohesive group…

Absolutely agree.. look what happened to C++ over the last decade(s).

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#59

Post by chimpburger »

Kovah wrote: post #34

I am about to learn a new programming language and I decided against Go just because of this fact. I do not trust Google and reading this article just makes clear how critical the state of the language is in terms of control by the community. Python looks most promising and I already worked with it, but I am not sure yet. Can anyone recommend a viable alternative for Go? Any web-focused language that is performant, m…

Kotlin

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#60

Post by fathead_glacier »

ncmncm wrote: post #6

This. But Go is one in a long line of proprietary languages that those of us who have been around the block know to stay away from. Recently: Java was Sun's, C# is Microsoft's, Swift is Apple's, Go is Google's. With any luck, all will be footnotes in ten years. Those of us who knew better than to get invested in them will be fine. Everyone else gets a chance to learn something.

Experience can differ between companies and languages. I have been involved over the past year with Julia which is mainly ran and developed by the company Julia Computing. One might say that it is the equivalent operating scheme as the companies you mentioned. However, my experience with the community has been vastly different. If you go over the development issues list it is extremely satisfying to see how many are raised by the community and adopted into the language. In contrast to the omnipotent response of Google with the Go community. Having such differences implies that a company ran open source language can indeed be influenced by the community.

Having said that, just because it exists in Julia does not mean it can exist in Go. I just wanted to mention that there are exceptions to the rule which begs the question if it is a rule in the first place.

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