Go is Google's language, not ours

#1

Post by uggedal » Wed, May 22, 2019, 5:59 AM UTC

Go is Google's language, not ours
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Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#2

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC » Wed, May 22, 2019, 6:26 AM UTC

To determine how open a language really is look at how many widely used implementations of the compiler there are for the language. If there is only a single implementation of the compiler/interpreter than it is not really open but controlled by that core compiler team.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#3

Post by lgierth » Wed, May 22, 2019, 6:29 AM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #2

To determine how open a language really is look at how many widely used implementations of the compiler there are for the language. If there is only a single implementation of the compiler/interpreter than it is not really open but controlled by that core compiler team.

Afaik GCC's Go has been pretty complete and up-to-date for a couple of years.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#4

Post by dataking » Wed, May 22, 2019, 6:31 AM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #2

To determine how open a language really is look at how many widely used implementations of the compiler there are for the language. If there is only a single implementation of the compiler/interpreter than it is not really open but controlled by that core compiler team.

I don't think that is necessarily true. Rust has only one compiler (and I think adding a second one would be a huge effort with no clear win) yet it is developed by a community that is very welcoming to newcomers. At least, that's been my experience.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#5

Post by dis-sys » Wed, May 22, 2019, 6:32 AM UTC

Seeing Huawei got recently blacklisted for all US made chips, parts and some Android services from Google, an interesting question to ask is whether the US government will one day force some foreign companies (e.g. Huawei, ZTE and DJI for example) to stop using programming languages invented & implemented by US companies.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#6

Post by ncmncm » Wed, May 22, 2019, 6:33 AM UTC

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.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#7

Post by Conan_Kudo » Wed, May 22, 2019, 6:34 AM UTC

dataking wrote: post #4

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #2

To determine how open a language really is look at how many widely used implementations of the compiler there are for the language. If there is only a single implementation of the compiler/interpreter than it is not really open but controlled by that core compiler team.

I don't think that is necessarily true. Rust has only one compiler (and I think adding a second one would be a huge effort with no clear win) yet it is developed by a community that is very welcoming to newcomers. At least, that's been my experience.

It is definitely true. There's virtually no room for improving the underlying compiler toolchain because there's no allowance or support for an alternate implementation (using GCC, for example).

Go at least has gcc-go, which is a compliant implementation that gets some benefits from being part of GCC (like not completely broken support for dynamic link libraries!).

Having a second compiler implementation forces the language grammar and behavior to be specified in a formal manner that allows anyone to understand how it works.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#8

Post by networkimprov » Wed, May 22, 2019, 6:35 AM UTC

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.

So what would you recommend?

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#9

Post by adrianN » Wed, May 22, 2019, 6:35 AM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #2

To determine how open a language really is look at how many widely used implementations of the compiler there are for the language. If there is only a single implementation of the compiler/interpreter than it is not really open but controlled by that core compiler team.

Most languages I can think of have one very dominant implementation and maybe another one or two that few people use. Python, Ruby, Java, C#, Go, Rust, Haskell... C/C++ are the only exception since Clang became serious competition to GCC and Visual Studio. Even Javascript only really has Chrome and Firefox.

Re: Go is Google's language, not ours

#10

Post by zik » Wed, May 22, 2019, 6:36 AM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #2

To determine how open a language really is look at how many widely used implementations of the compiler there are for the language. If there is only a single implementation of the compiler/interpreter than it is not really open but controlled by that core compiler team.

There are at least four Go compilers: the original one from google, GCC go, gollvm and GopherJS.