undefined | Better HN

0 pointskerkeslager6y ago0 comments

"Simple" when used in programming, doesn't mean anything. So let's be clear here: what we mean is that compilation occurs in a single pass and the artifact of compilation is a single binary.

These are two things that make a lot of sense at Google if you read why they were done.

But unless you're working at Google, I struggle to guess why you would care about either of these things. The first requires sacrificing anything resembling a reasonable type system, and even with that sacrifice Go doesn't really deliver: are we really supposed to buy that "go generate" isn't a compilation step? The second is sort of nice, but not nice enough to be a factor in choosing a language.

The core language is currently small, but every language grows with time: even C with its slow-moving, change-averse standards body has grown over the years. Currently people are refreshed by the lack of horrible dependency trees in Go, but that's mostly because there aren't many libraries available for Go: that will also change with time (and you can just not import all of CPAN/PyPy/npm/etc. in any language, so Go isn't special anyway).

If you like Go for some aesthetic of "simplicity", then sure, I guess I can see how it has that. But if we're discussing pros and cons, aesthetics are pretty subjective and not really work talking about.

0 comments

3 comments · 1 top-level

papaf6y ago· 2 in thread

I don't agree with your definition of simplicity.

I like Go and I consider it a simple language because:

1. I can keep most of the language in my head and I don't hit productivity pauses where I have to look something up.

2. There is usually only one way to do things and I don't have to spend time deciding on the right way.

For me, these qualities make programming very enjoyable.

kerkeslagerOP6y ago

> I don't agree with your definition of simplicity.

You mean where I explicitly said that "simple" didn't mean anything, so we should talk about what we mean more concretely?

> 1. I can keep most of the language in my head and I don't hit productivity pauses where I have to look something up.

The core language is currently small, but every language grows with time: even C with its slow-moving, change-averse standards body has grown over the years.

> 2. There is usually only one way to do things and I don't have to spend time deciding on the right way.

Go supports functional programming and object-oriented programming, so pretty much anything you want to do has at least two ways to do it--it sounds like you just aren't familiar with the various ways.

The problem with having more than one way to do things isn't usually choosing which to use, by the way: the problem is when people use one of the many ways differently within the same codebase and it doesn't play nicely with the way things are done in the codebase.

This isn't really a criticism of Go, however: I can't think of a language that actually delivers on there being one right way to do things (most don't even make that promise--Python makes the promise but certainly doesn't deliver on it).

sk0g6y ago

Does Go support functional programming? There's no support for map, filter, etc. It barely supports OOP too, with no real inheritance or generics.

I've been happy working with it for a year now, though I've had the chance to work with Kotlin and I have to say, it's very nice too, even if the parallelism isn't quite easy/ convenient to use.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse