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Go is Google's language, not ours

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Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#61

Post by rincebrain »

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.

C# (and other .NET friends) aren't dying for a while, there's a large base of things written for multiple platforms on it, even though I think Microsoft isn't writing bunches of their core OS components in it.

Java isn't dying for a while either - anyone who still needs to support applets aside, or corporate applications written when Java was the fashionable thing to ship apps in, Android's install base will mean it's relevant for a fair stretch yet, even if OpenJDK fell into the sun tomorrow.

Swift I don't have much insight into, as I haven't done much with OSX or iOS in a while, and I have indeed not seen much uptake outside of those.

Which languages are you suggesting were/are good targets?

Python is technically not one company driving it but a bunch of developers on it are employed by large companies to work on it.

JavaScript is seeing a bunch of use in a great many places, but originated with one company's implementation and development.

Rust is pretty obviously one company's child, even though it is seeing decent uptake from other users. No predictions on whether it would survive said company dropping their work on it, though.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#62

Post by networkimprov »

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…

If you want performance and garbage collection, Java (and its family), C#, and Go are the major options.

I'd pick Go among those every day of the week, but it's not perfect.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#63

Post by calcifer »

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).

By my count, fewer than half of Rust's core team [1] are Mozilla employees, whereas the number is 100% for Go. Rust also has a very clear and open governance model [2], where the Go team is more closer to "we'll do what we want".

[1] https://www.rust-lang.org/governance/teams/core [2] https://www.rust-lang.org/governance

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#64

Post by ehsankia »

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…

Is there any example of a successful large open source project that's truly lead by the community, and not a handful of people that decide what goes in and what doesn't? What would such a model even look like?

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#65

Post by B-Con »

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.

This is the general point though. Community pressure would have produced generics under a different leadership model that wants to check the box.

Whether this is the right decision for this specific issue is a different story. But the fact that they aren't checking boxes for the sake of it is evidence of this style WAI.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#66

Post by rococode »

fetbaffe wrote: post #54
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.

I'd use this as an argument that if PHP is the gold standard for a community-driven programming language, I'd rather every popular language be backed by a large corp haha.

Actually, even ignoring PHP, I'm vaguely convinced it's generally better for a language to be backed by a company. I personally feel more secure knowing that there are people whose full-time job is to take care of the language, and I trust community backlash to deal with any errant decisions. I can't imagine Google (or Microsoft, or Apple, or Facebook) making or blocking a change in a way that kills an entire programming language while they sit idly by ignoring the community response.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#67

Post by ncmncm »

dtrailin wrote: post #44
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.

Each of the languages you mentioned is wildly popular, well run, and not going anywhere. If you chose not to learn Java a decade ago because you "knew better" you aren't any better off than you were before, given that this language is the core foundation many companies and open source projects, maintaining relevance for 20 years. Not learning Swift now means you won't be able to do effective IOS development. Not lear…

You can fork them and become (or remain) irrelevant.

Ios development is a walled garden. C# is barely used except to target Windos. Go? Too early to say. If it did fade away, who would miss it, really? Its express design purpose was to be not powerful enough to make big mistakes in. Has it transcended that? If so, what is its purpose now?

Java has shown staying power, despite its shortcomings, although its connection to the Apache Foundation ("where projects go to die") offers just a ray of hope.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#68

Post by dnautics »

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…

I'll suggest elixir. It's fun to build in and the community is growing (at least two companies with very large scaling demands use it). Don't get hung up about performance benchmarks, they're biased towards numerical algorithms; in practice if you are web focused your tasks will be IO bound and things like uptime process restart semantics and robust concurrency are more important.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#69

Post by calcifer »

nnq wrote: post #56
crimsonalucard wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> but nothing stops you from writing the most complex computer programs you can imagine without it.

Sure, you can do that with punch cards as well, but there is a reason we've collectively moved beyond them.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#70

Post by hvidgaard »

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…

What you learn from dedicating time to a new language, should not be the ability to program in it in 10 years, but to solve a problem you have now and hopefully learn some new concepts. Pick what will keep you engaged - it's the "learning something" that matters if you're not explicitly trying to solve something.
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