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Go is Google's language, not ours

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Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#631

Post by dang »

masklinn wrote: post #236
foldr wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go does not have generic arrays any more than C does. You cannot e.g. write a generic Go function to reverse an array. You seem to be conflating type-parameterized collections with generics. You can use generics to implement type-parameterized collections, but it doesn't really make sense to think of type-parameterized collections as a form of generics unless you can actually abstract over the type parameters (which…

> Go does not have generic arrays any more than C does. Go does have generic collections, and generic functions operating on these collections. > You cannot e.g. write a generic Go function to reverse an array. You can if you're part of the core team and implement them as builtins. Go doesn't have userland generics, because users of Go are peons who can't be trusted with sharp implements. > which you can't in Go Beca…

Would you please drop the nasty rhetoric and not do programming language flamewars on HN? They lead to harsher, dumber discussion, and ultimately cause a forum to destroy itself. Learning from those past lessons was one of the motivations for starting Hacker News years ago, and it's not like we want to forget them now.

Edit: we've had to ask you half a dozen times in the past not to post aggressively and uncivilly on HN. Would you please fix this? Reviewing the site guidelines should make it clear what we're looking for instead.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#632

Post by iopq »

civility wrote: post #622
marcosdumay wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rust people are very glad that Rust brought high-kinded types to replace the most common uses of hygienic macros. Using macros for everything is a nightmare. About using them as generics, how do you enforce constraints? Unconstrained generics won't lead you far (or better, will lead you far into JS's Wat territory).

IMO, Rust has a very nice macro system, and this is a good thing (although I'm not familiar with any changes they've made in the last year or two). It's a bad thing that sometimes one needs to resort to the macro system because other features in Rust don't play well together, but that's a long topic with no solution in sight. > About using them as generics, how do you enforce constraints? I'm really thinking about th…

I see you're reinventing C++

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#633

Post by EnderMB »

pjmlp wrote: post #315
EnderMB wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The limiting factor for me, as a long-time C# dev now working outside of Windows, is that many of the tools I used haven't been ported to .NET Core. Take Umbraco, for example. If someone were to port it to .NET Core and rewrite parts of it to use Postgres as a db option there would be zero reason to ever use WordPress again.

Other than like 90% of ISPs only offer cheap hosting for PHP.

You're right, although I'm not sure if people necessarily go to their ISP or to the cheapest host possible.

Most of the time, in my experience at least, someone that wants cheap hosting and is using something like .NET or Python will Google "cheap python hosting" and see what is cheapest/recommended.

PHP tends to be the outlier, because it's absolutely everywhere, but I think the web has matured to a point where people will look for specific hosting for their choice of tech. Hell, back in my freelancing days when I used to rebuild broken WP builds, most people that weren't given hosting by their client chose it from looking up "cheap wordpress hosts".

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#634

Post by pjmlp »

EnderMB wrote: post #633
pjmlp wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than like 90% of ISPs only offer cheap hosting for PHP.

You're right, although I'm not sure if people necessarily go to their ISP or to the cheapest host possible. Most of the time, in my experience at least, someone that wants cheap hosting and is using something like .NET or Python will Google "cheap python hosting" and see what is cheapest/recommended. PHP tends to be the outlier, because it's absolutely everywhere, but I think the web has matured to a point where peop…

When time came to replace my XML/XSLT based website by something else, just to get up with the times, I resisted to touch PHP, but in the end having it at my ISP versus the trouble of using something else won.

Nowadays I am able to use PHP 7.x, so I just keep using it there, and suggesting it for the less tech savy friends that want some kind of dynamic website.

Because while I do build sites in Java and .NET, I do accept that they aren´t that easy to set up at most ISPs, and cloud based one click solutions tend to be more expensive.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#635

Post by pron »

pjmlp wrote: post #615
pron wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because it made sense even back then. That was necessary for performance back then. User-defined value types weren't, and Java has done well without them. > Object has semantics, and that was a mistake, because it contributes to the bloat. I think most of the RAM bloat is due to the GC trading off extra RAM for speed rather than object headers, and I'm not sure trading off complexity for headers was right 25 years…

I advise you to read Mesa/Cedar report on the impact of garbage collection algorithms available at Xerox PARC bitsavers archive, EthOS or SpinOS experience with Modula-3. All of them refer that having value types alongside GC had a relevant impact improving performance. All systems designed before Java was a thing. Or since you refer to JS, the paper about SELF's design. Even Dylan was designed with AOT/JIT and value…

Oh, I don't deny that value types would have helped performance back in '95, just that they were absolutely essential for Java. Smalltalk/Self and Scheme/CL didn't have them, and those were probably Java's greatest influences; I don't think VB had them, either. Also, in its first four years, before HotSpot was ready, Java was interpreted, so it had bigger performance problems.

I don't know why there was no emphasis on AOT back then. I guess they started with interpreter/JIT, and then there just wasn't much demand for AOT until now.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#636

Post by pron »

pjmlp wrote: post #614
pron wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between useful, and even very useful, and absolutely necessary. Clearly value types weren't absolutely necessary, as Java did well without them (and JS still does). Gosling said that his goal was to have nothing you can somehow live without (I don't know how well early Java lived up that ideal, but that was the ideal). Hardware changes made user-defined value types absolutely necessary for worklo…

Being there since the beginning, I wrote my first Java game in 1996, early Java only did well thanks to Sun's marketing weight and it being free beer vs the alternative of having to pay for a compiler like Delphi.

I was around, too, and I don't think that was at all the full story. Marketing has never been solely responsible for the long-term success of any product. There were other languages that were very heavily marketed: VB and C++ (and FoxPro, too, I think) by Microsoft, Delphi, and about a million other RAD tools. Being free was one of the reasons, but so was targeting the web, and Gosling's design of wrapping a JVM that gave people what they wanted (dynamic linking, fast compilation, garbage collection) wrapped in a language that felt familiar and non-threatening. I don't remember what were Delphi's issues, but a big project I wasn't involved with at the same organization I was working at circa 2002 (I was all C++ back then) did Java on the server and Delphi on the client. Maybe Delphi didn't have a good server-side story?

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#637

Post by civility »

iopq wrote: post #632
civility wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, Rust has a very nice macro system, and this is a good thing (although I'm not familiar with any changes they've made in the last year or two). It's a bad thing that sometimes one needs to resort to the macro system because other features in Rust don't play well together, but that's a long topic with no solution in sight. > About using them as generics, how do you enforce constraints? I'm really thinking about th…

I see you're reinventing C++

I guess you missed the part above where I mentioned C++ templates as a cautionary tale about accidentally creating an awkward metalanguage. Besides, Go and Rust are both clearly responses to C++, so it makes sense they would try to provide (reinvent) similar capabilities while avoiding the flaws.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#638

Post by pjmlp »

pron wrote: post #635
pjmlp wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I advise you to read Mesa/Cedar report on the impact of garbage collection algorithms available at Xerox PARC bitsavers archive, EthOS or SpinOS experience with Modula-3. All of them refer that having value types alongside GC had a relevant impact improving performance. All systems designed before Java was a thing. Or since you refer to JS, the paper about SELF's design. Even Dylan was designed with AOT/JIT and value…

Oh, I don't deny that value types would have helped performance back in '95, just that they were absolutely essential for Java. Smalltalk/Self and Scheme/CL didn't have them, and those were probably Java's greatest influences; I don't think VB had them, either. Also, in its first four years, before HotSpot was ready, Java was interpreted, so it had bigger performance problems. I don't know why there was no emphasis o…

Microsoft Basics have support for value types since MS-DOS.

QuickBasic supported value types and AOT to native code, and while Visual Basic used P-Code, version 6 introduced a proper AOT native compiler.

Modula-3 was also a big influence, at least accordingly to some papers.

There was surely demand for AOT, given that most commercial JVMs had it in some form or the other since 2000.

Even Sun actually supported it in Java Embedded variant for OEMs, probably grudgingly.

Common Lisp certainly has support for value types.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#639

Post by pjmlp »

pron wrote: post #636
pjmlp wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being there since the beginning, I wrote my first Java game in 1996, early Java only did well thanks to Sun's marketing weight and it being free beer vs the alternative of having to pay for a compiler like Delphi.

I was around, too, and I don't think that was at all the full story. Marketing has never been solely responsible for the long-term success of any product. There were other languages that were very heavily marketed: VB and C++ (and FoxPro, too, I think) by Microsoft, Delphi, and about a million other RAD tools. Being free was one of the reasons, but so was targeting the web, and Gosling's design of wrapping a JVM that…

It sure did, as long as you were a Windows shop.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#640

Post by 0815test »

pjmlp wrote: post #639
pron wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was around, too, and I don't think that was at all the full story. Marketing has never been solely responsible for the long-term success of any product. There were other languages that were very heavily marketed: VB and C++ (and FoxPro, too, I think) by Microsoft, Delphi, and about a million other RAD tools. Being free was one of the reasons, but so was targeting the web, and Gosling's design of wrapping a JVM that…

It sure did, as long as you were a Windows shop.

No need for Windows. There was an official Linux implementation back in the day, codenamed Kylix.
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