Mark Chu-Carroll on Go (programming language)
-
I like Mark Chu-Carroll's[^] writing style. A very balanced and knowledgable guy, IMHO. Anyway, here's his opinion on Go[^]
Normally I'd ignore this, and bitch to myself, but I'm going to try and take the time to respond to this, so I suppose this will end up being a mini-rant. First this smells suspiciously of unix-like laziness. When I start to hear things like "minimalism" and "simple as possible", my bullshit meter starts to go off. Why? Because this is frequently bandied about in regards to *nix type systems as being a feature. In practice what it means (in my experience) is that the developers of said system (or library) want to do as little work as possible in implementing the system, so they make things simple for themselves, which is convenient for them, but usually makes it a total pain in the ass to use or develop with. X-Winblows is a great example of this. It's a lowest common denominator approach that's a total pain to program under and has held back unix GUI's for *decades* (at this point). Other things like this are unix's approach to data (everything's a file!), security, etc. Writing software is hard. Writing *good* software is harder. Implementing details that help the user and/or developer and ensure a certain clarity in the system is a lot of work. But when done properly you end up with great results and powerful tool. Unfortunately people don't like to hear this. Just looking at one of the first examples:
func fib(n) (val int, pos int) {
if n == 0 {
val = 1;
pos = 0;
} else if n == 1 {
val = 1;
pos = 1;
} else {
v1, _ := fib(n-1);
v2,_ := fib(n-2);
val = v1 + v2;
pos = n;
}
return;
}Huh? I've got "=", "==", *AND* ":="? WTF? First of all "==" is the bane of peoples existence. How many bugs have been caused by the accidental use of this? It's stupid and should be gotten rid of. That leaves us with, apparently (I haven't read the language spec yet, so I'm going on this guys article and one other one I glanced at) two ways to assign values? Grody. Seriously grody. No OO. None whatsoever, despite the "basic object-oriented features" claim. This seems ridiculous. OO is an incredibly useful tool when used correctly. Just because there are a large number of clueless dolts out there who can't be bothered to learn their craft properly and screw things up, doesn't mean you need to drop it from the language. Make it optional. You don't need to force it down peoples throats (like Java does), but you don't need to take it away either. "There's an allocation operator, "new" - but it doesn't initialize values. You can't p
-
I like Mark Chu-Carroll's[^] writing style. A very balanced and knowledgable guy, IMHO. Anyway, here's his opinion on Go[^]
-
Except he fails to make the logical jump that to add all the things he would like, they'd end up with what we already have, but without all the tools to support it. (I also can't stand how proponents of a new language use artificial examples of how great their language is without realizing that their example is no more obvious to the novice than the equivalent in the language(s) they are dumping on. Plus, there's no question that any computer language, especially one with a pedigree like C++, can create convoluted programs, but a thing called self-discipline; just because a language has a feature, doesn't mean you should use it. Finally, I've noticed that engineers who get too caught up in Java and C# often forget how to do very simple things in C/C++, like using malloc or pointers.)
Joe Woodbury wrote:
Except he fails to make the logical jump that to add all the things he would like, they'd end up with what we already have, but without all the tools to support it.
I don't really think so, he is pretty modest in his requirements - but I agree that if they start adding features liberally, they can end up with something like D[^] :) Anyway, I like the way they use interfaces and structural subtyping instead of inheritance (which is a very clumsy concept, IMHO). Now if they departed from C a little bit more and removed the garbage collector, I would be really hooked up.
-
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
I also don't want to forget how to in C
Because sometime you need code that actually, you know, performs well.
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
Unpaid overtime is slavery.
Trollslayer wrote:
Meetings - where minutes are taken and hours are lost.
We should put all the C, C++ and C# programmers in a steel cage and have them settle this. Disclaimer, I took C, and C++ in college and am currently learning C#. I hate like them all equally.
-
-
We should put all the C, C++ and C# programmers in a steel cage and have them settle this. Disclaimer, I took C, and C++ in college and am currently learning C#. I hate like them all equally.
I would prefer to throw the c, c++, c# and Java developers in a cage and let us end Java's misery. And my misery of having to work with a bunch of java hacks my company converted into c# hacks because they are under the impression that all "resources" can do program anything as long as there is an ass in the chair. /rant off
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
Unpaid overtime is slavery.
Trollslayer wrote:
Meetings - where minutes are taken and hours are lost.
-
We should put all the C, C++ and C# programmers in a steel cage and have them settle this. Disclaimer, I took C, and C++ in college and am currently learning C#. I hate like them all equally.
Do you want to write a program fast? Or write a fast program? :-D If there is to be only one language, I suggest that C is a better candidate than C#.
-
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
I also don't want to forget how to in C
Because sometime you need code that actually, you know, performs well.
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
Unpaid overtime is slavery.
Trollslayer wrote:
Meetings - where minutes are taken and hours are lost.
-
Normally I'd ignore this, and bitch to myself, but I'm going to try and take the time to respond to this, so I suppose this will end up being a mini-rant. First this smells suspiciously of unix-like laziness. When I start to hear things like "minimalism" and "simple as possible", my bullshit meter starts to go off. Why? Because this is frequently bandied about in regards to *nix type systems as being a feature. In practice what it means (in my experience) is that the developers of said system (or library) want to do as little work as possible in implementing the system, so they make things simple for themselves, which is convenient for them, but usually makes it a total pain in the ass to use or develop with. X-Winblows is a great example of this. It's a lowest common denominator approach that's a total pain to program under and has held back unix GUI's for *decades* (at this point). Other things like this are unix's approach to data (everything's a file!), security, etc. Writing software is hard. Writing *good* software is harder. Implementing details that help the user and/or developer and ensure a certain clarity in the system is a lot of work. But when done properly you end up with great results and powerful tool. Unfortunately people don't like to hear this. Just looking at one of the first examples:
func fib(n) (val int, pos int) {
if n == 0 {
val = 1;
pos = 0;
} else if n == 1 {
val = 1;
pos = 1;
} else {
v1, _ := fib(n-1);
v2,_ := fib(n-2);
val = v1 + v2;
pos = n;
}
return;
}Huh? I've got "=", "==", *AND* ":="? WTF? First of all "==" is the bane of peoples existence. How many bugs have been caused by the accidental use of this? It's stupid and should be gotten rid of. That leaves us with, apparently (I haven't read the language spec yet, so I'm going on this guys article and one other one I glanced at) two ways to assign values? Grody. Seriously grody. No OO. None whatsoever, despite the "basic object-oriented features" claim. This seems ridiculous. OO is an incredibly useful tool when used correctly. Just because there are a large number of clueless dolts out there who can't be bothered to learn their craft properly and screw things up, doesn't mean you need to drop it from the language. Make it optional. You don't need to force it down peoples throats (like Java does), but you don't need to take it away either. "There's an allocation operator, "new" - but it doesn't initialize values. You can't p
Jim Crafton wrote:
No OO. None whatsoever, despite the "basic object-oriented features" claim. This seems ridiculous. OO is an incredibly useful tool when used correctly.
For some purposes, such as GUI. However, Go is intended to be a system language, and OOP is much less useful there.
Jim Crafton wrote:
Personally I think D is a *much* better, more pragmatic choice
Not sure I agree - D makes C++ look simple, plus Andrei Alexandrescu is now working on it and that is not good :)
-
:sigh: 2000 called; it wants it's argument back.
"Creating your own blog is about as easy as creating your own urine, and you're about as likely to find someone else interested in it." -- Lore Sjöberg
Are you implying that Java can perform on the level of C?
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
Unpaid overtime is slavery.
Trollslayer wrote:
Meetings - where minutes are taken and hours are lost.
-
Normally I'd ignore this, and bitch to myself, but I'm going to try and take the time to respond to this, so I suppose this will end up being a mini-rant. First this smells suspiciously of unix-like laziness. When I start to hear things like "minimalism" and "simple as possible", my bullshit meter starts to go off. Why? Because this is frequently bandied about in regards to *nix type systems as being a feature. In practice what it means (in my experience) is that the developers of said system (or library) want to do as little work as possible in implementing the system, so they make things simple for themselves, which is convenient for them, but usually makes it a total pain in the ass to use or develop with. X-Winblows is a great example of this. It's a lowest common denominator approach that's a total pain to program under and has held back unix GUI's for *decades* (at this point). Other things like this are unix's approach to data (everything's a file!), security, etc. Writing software is hard. Writing *good* software is harder. Implementing details that help the user and/or developer and ensure a certain clarity in the system is a lot of work. But when done properly you end up with great results and powerful tool. Unfortunately people don't like to hear this. Just looking at one of the first examples:
func fib(n) (val int, pos int) {
if n == 0 {
val = 1;
pos = 0;
} else if n == 1 {
val = 1;
pos = 1;
} else {
v1, _ := fib(n-1);
v2,_ := fib(n-2);
val = v1 + v2;
pos = n;
}
return;
}Huh? I've got "=", "==", *AND* ":="? WTF? First of all "==" is the bane of peoples existence. How many bugs have been caused by the accidental use of this? It's stupid and should be gotten rid of. That leaves us with, apparently (I haven't read the language spec yet, so I'm going on this guys article and one other one I glanced at) two ways to assign values? Grody. Seriously grody. No OO. None whatsoever, despite the "basic object-oriented features" claim. This seems ridiculous. OO is an incredibly useful tool when used correctly. Just because there are a large number of clueless dolts out there who can't be bothered to learn their craft properly and screw things up, doesn't mean you need to drop it from the language. Make it optional. You don't need to force it down peoples throats (like Java does), but you don't need to take it away either. "There's an allocation operator, "new" - but it doesn't initialize values. You can't p
Jim Crafton wrote:
Personally I think D is a *much* better, more pragmatic choice. D gives you choices and power, as well as seeming to be a lot more practical.
Are you using D in production? Just curious since I've yet to meet anyone that is.
And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning. --Isaac Asimov Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. --Ralph Charell
-
Normally I'd ignore this, and bitch to myself, but I'm going to try and take the time to respond to this, so I suppose this will end up being a mini-rant. First this smells suspiciously of unix-like laziness. When I start to hear things like "minimalism" and "simple as possible", my bullshit meter starts to go off. Why? Because this is frequently bandied about in regards to *nix type systems as being a feature. In practice what it means (in my experience) is that the developers of said system (or library) want to do as little work as possible in implementing the system, so they make things simple for themselves, which is convenient for them, but usually makes it a total pain in the ass to use or develop with. X-Winblows is a great example of this. It's a lowest common denominator approach that's a total pain to program under and has held back unix GUI's for *decades* (at this point). Other things like this are unix's approach to data (everything's a file!), security, etc. Writing software is hard. Writing *good* software is harder. Implementing details that help the user and/or developer and ensure a certain clarity in the system is a lot of work. But when done properly you end up with great results and powerful tool. Unfortunately people don't like to hear this. Just looking at one of the first examples:
func fib(n) (val int, pos int) {
if n == 0 {
val = 1;
pos = 0;
} else if n == 1 {
val = 1;
pos = 1;
} else {
v1, _ := fib(n-1);
v2,_ := fib(n-2);
val = v1 + v2;
pos = n;
}
return;
}Huh? I've got "=", "==", *AND* ":="? WTF? First of all "==" is the bane of peoples existence. How many bugs have been caused by the accidental use of this? It's stupid and should be gotten rid of. That leaves us with, apparently (I haven't read the language spec yet, so I'm going on this guys article and one other one I glanced at) two ways to assign values? Grody. Seriously grody. No OO. None whatsoever, despite the "basic object-oriented features" claim. This seems ridiculous. OO is an incredibly useful tool when used correctly. Just because there are a large number of clueless dolts out there who can't be bothered to learn their craft properly and screw things up, doesn't mean you need to drop it from the language. Make it optional. You don't need to force it down peoples throats (like Java does), but you don't need to take it away either. "There's an allocation operator, "new" - but it doesn't initialize values. You can't p
Jim Crafton wrote:
"Oh Mom, math is hard I don't want to do it" "OK son, go and play on your XBox"
Later, as little Timmy grows up, he enters an XBOX Modern Warfare Competition, wins, ends up making 2.1 million, signs a multi-million dollar contract with Microsoft as a XBOX commercial guy, gets deals from shows like G4 and ends up being the Gamer Face for Modern Warfare III. Buys 4 homes, 6 cars and has slept with nearly all of the Victoria Secrets models. Finally marrying one of them, who never seems to age, they have 3 kids who all attend Harvard, and plan to either become Doctors or Lawyers or both. Mean-while, little Jimmy, the kid who's parents pushed him to learn Math, takes a job designing Game Consoles for a meager $80k/yr, works 90 hours a week, ends-up getting a divorce because "he's never home and obviously doesn't care for his family", turns up on shows like Jerry Springer, coming off as a no good workaholic that only gives a $#!^ about "his job", no matter how he tries to explain he was just trying to support his family and not loose his job to outsourcing, ultimately ending up on the street because his wife takes the house, cars, kids and his dog. Later his Kids go on Oprah and blame all their problems on him.
:..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
Bad Astronomy |VCF|wxWidgets|WTL -
Do you want to write a program fast? Or write a fast program? :-D If there is to be only one language, I suggest that C is a better candidate than C#.
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
Do you want to write a program fast? Or write a fast program?
I want to write a program fast. My users want me to write fast programs. Users win :)
-
Do you want to write a program fast? Or write a fast program? :-D If there is to be only one language, I suggest that C is a better candidate than C#.
Depends on the situation, which is why there are multiple tools.
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
Unpaid overtime is slavery.
Trollslayer wrote:
Meetings - where minutes are taken and hours are lost.
-
Do you want to write a program fast? Or write a fast program? :-D If there is to be only one language, I suggest that C is a better candidate than C#.
I'm learning C# for this job. That's what they use. I had no issues with C. C++ was a bit of a pain because I was learning visual basic along with it (1997). (Which makes C# feel oddly right to me now...) I just find it oddly humorous to see the language debate in flavors of C. It's like the Ford vs Chevy or Mac vs Microsoft debates or politics. People get very bent out of shape.
-
I would prefer to throw the c, c++, c# and Java developers in a cage and let us end Java's misery. And my misery of having to work with a bunch of java hacks my company converted into c# hacks because they are under the impression that all "resources" can do program anything as long as there is an ass in the chair. /rant off
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
Unpaid overtime is slavery.
Trollslayer wrote:
Meetings - where minutes are taken and hours are lost.
I've known 1 java developer. If he had offered me Kool-aid I would have scream and run...
-
Jim Crafton wrote:
No OO. None whatsoever, despite the "basic object-oriented features" claim. This seems ridiculous. OO is an incredibly useful tool when used correctly.
For some purposes, such as GUI. However, Go is intended to be a system language, and OOP is much less useful there.
Jim Crafton wrote:
Personally I think D is a *much* better, more pragmatic choice
Not sure I agree - D makes C++ look simple, plus Andrei Alexandrescu is now working on it and that is not good :)
Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
For some purposes, such as GUI. However, Go is intended to be a system language, and OOP is much less useful there.
I completely disagree. There are many things in a "system" (whatever that means) that you might model using OO. I'm not saying you have to embrace any of the GOF pattern design horsecrap. Just because you have the ability to inherit behavior doesn't mean you have to have 16 levels of it. Do you have any concrete cases where claiming that OOP is much less euseful than plain old procedural programming? For example, if you're designing an OS for a desktop system, how is plain procedural programming any better than using a combination of procedural and OOP where appropriate?
Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
Not sure I agree - D makes C++ look simple, plus Andrei Alexandrescu is now working on it and that is not good Smile
I agree with the latter, not so much with the former. The D syntax can actually be parsed, unlike the massive syntactic migraine that is C++. A mortal programmer could actually write some sort of parser tool that could do useful things given D syntax within his or her lifetime. D does have a lot of features, but you don't have to use them all. And many of them are not very difficult to pick up (from what I've read).
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
-
Are you implying that Java can perform on the level of C?
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
Unpaid overtime is slavery.
Trollslayer wrote:
Meetings - where minutes are taken and hours are lost.
I've danced this tango with John. :) Respectfully, my impression of his argument is that he thinks performance should be off loaded to the hardware. Which is almost reasonable if your domain and customers don't require absolute performance like mine do.
And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning. --Isaac Asimov Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. --Ralph Charell
-
I'm learning C# for this job. That's what they use. I had no issues with C. C++ was a bit of a pain because I was learning visual basic along with it (1997). (Which makes C# feel oddly right to me now...) I just find it oddly humorous to see the language debate in flavors of C. It's like the Ford vs Chevy or Mac vs Microsoft debates or politics. People get very bent out of shape.
C vs C++, i couldn't care less i like them both. (c || c++) vs c# depends on what you want to do with them they all have a purpose. (c || c++ || c#) vs java is where I have a problem. Java is shitty, and so are (most) Java developers.
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
Unpaid overtime is slavery.
Trollslayer wrote:
Meetings - where minutes are taken and hours are lost.
-
Jim Crafton wrote:
Personally I think D is a *much* better, more pragmatic choice. D gives you choices and power, as well as seeming to be a lot more practical.
Are you using D in production? Just curious since I've yet to meet anyone that is.
And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning. --Isaac Asimov Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. --Ralph Charell
Nope. I check up on it every year, and keep wishing that we would. I've played a bit with it. Everything I've seen, in terms of the language, I've been pretty impressed with. It seems practical. Not perfect, but definitely a *huge* improvement over C/C++, given the constrains that the language's designer imposed on himself.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow