Mark Chu-Carroll on Go (programming language)
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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
Hear hear! All that and generics -- if they really intend to have them, put them in now(!), don't wait for version 2 like C# did. I don't think they have a deadline or fear of another competitor coming to market before them, so I see no reason not to have all the features they plan on having right from the start. I liked the way D was presented in the pre-1 days: "Here's a language I'm working on. I'd like to get some feedback on what I have so far." rather than: "Here's our new language! Start using it! Oh by the way, we're not done yet."
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:-O CP, my home away from home. But I'm not supporting any of you no-good free loaders ... now stop slacking and go play your XBOX. :-\
:..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
Bad Astronomy |VCF|wxWidgets|WTLCan't. Boss took it out of the cubicle. Muttered something about interns and if it weren't for my wife I'd be in trouble...
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Interesting, what type of software do you write? This is the sort of thing that leads to disagreements here, everyone approaches things from their own perspective. In my world my customers want the code fast and they want a *lot* of functionality and they want to never lose their data and as far as performance goes as long as they don't notice anything taking a long time they don't care about it.
"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
John C wrote:
This is the sort of thing that leads to disagreements here, everyone approaches things from their own perspective.
Yes!!!! And, believe it or not, there are much more than 0.00001% of developers who don't live in your world.
John C wrote:
In my world my customers want the code fast and they want a *lot* of functionality and they want to never lose their data and as far as performance goes as long as they don't notice anything taking a long time they don't care about it.
In my world, customers' number one wish is to make faster running programs. As for the features, they mostly complain we have too many of them :)
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John C wrote:
This is the sort of thing that leads to disagreements here, everyone approaches things from their own perspective.
Yes!!!! And, believe it or not, there are much more than 0.00001% of developers who don't live in your world.
John C wrote:
In my world my customers want the code fast and they want a *lot* of functionality and they want to never lose their data and as far as performance goes as long as they don't notice anything taking a long time they don't care about it.
In my world, customers' number one wish is to make faster running programs. As for the features, they mostly complain we have too many of them :)
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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).
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Jim Crafton wrote:
the GOF pattern design horsecrap
i'll 5 ya, just for this
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Interesting, what type of software do you write? This is the sort of thing that leads to disagreements here, everyone approaches things from their own perspective. In my world my customers want the code fast and they want a *lot* of functionality and they want to never lose their data and as far as performance goes as long as they don't notice anything taking a long time they don't care about it.
"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
John C wrote:
In my world my customers want the code fast and they want a *lot* of functionality and they want to never lose their data and as far as performance goes as long as they don't notice anything taking a long time they don't care about it.
In my world there are four major types of applications/solutions. System programs, Small Programs, Medium Business - Applications, Monstrous Corporate-Applications. From all these only the second kind is not always performance critical. And except for the system programs, the choice of the particular language has nothing to do with the performance.
The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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And....? What type of software do you write?
"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
"A desktop application designed for document collaboration in teams with members who are regularly off-line or who do not share the same network security clearance."
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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.
Amen brother!
The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
C++ standard io library
Yeah, that's a disaster, I agree. However I still don't see that as a reason to *completely* drop it from the language.
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Jim Crafton wrote:
However I still don't see that as a reason to *completely* drop it from the language
But it is not "completely" dropped out. They have interfaces and structural subtyping - you just don't explicitelly put the ineritance relashionship in the code. If a type implements all methods declared in an interface, than it is allowed to be used wherever the interface is expected, without the need to explicitely mark it as derived from the interface. Sure, it prevents you from making deep hierarchies, but I salute that.
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Hear hear! All that and generics -- if they really intend to have them, put them in now(!), don't wait for version 2 like C# did. I don't think they have a deadline or fear of another competitor coming to market before them, so I see no reason not to have all the features they plan on having right from the start. I liked the way D was presented in the pre-1 days: "Here's a language I'm working on. I'd like to get some feedback on what I have so far." rather than: "Here's our new language! Start using it! Oh by the way, we're not done yet."
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
Start using it! Oh by the way, we're not done yet
It's the *nix tradition. And anyone who dares to offer constructive criticism will be met with outrage that people "demand" something from the developers, or that they feel the developer "owe" them something. Which then devolves into a mind numbing pissing contest the likes of which Cro-Magnon man would shudder at. Just looked at the "Go-nuts" mailing list, and one of the posters equates the ability of Java's stack trace function to spitting out some random string via fprintf(stderr, "..."), in defense of the error code only approach. How is the ability to get a complete stack trace comparable to printing out some nonsensical string that may or may not be relevant to the actual error code that was returned?!
¡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
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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.
You can’t be serious! Try some time to create network communication server, protocol parser or connection puling without using OOP – the code will triple. Unless if under system programming you mean opening one TSP socket and reading 7 bytes of data.
The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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Jim Crafton wrote:
However I still don't see that as a reason to *completely* drop it from the language
But it is not "completely" dropped out. They have interfaces and structural subtyping - you just don't explicitelly put the ineritance relashionship in the code. If a type implements all methods declared in an interface, than it is allowed to be used wherever the interface is expected, without the need to explicitely mark it as derived from the interface. Sure, it prevents you from making deep hierarchies, but I salute that.
But I can't inherit behavior, right? Isn't that one of the compelling things about OOP, again, when used/designed properly? It seems goofy, to me at least.
¡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
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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.
You can’t be serious! Try some time to create network communication server, protocol parser or connection puling without using OOP – the code will triple. Unless if under system programming you mean opening one TSP socket and reading 7 bytes of data.
The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
Deyan Georgiev wrote:
You can’t be serious! Try some time to create network communication server, protocol parser or connection puling without using OOP – the code will triple
Just to be on the same page - by OOP, I mean the classic definition with class hierarchies. I don't see how the code "will triple" if you don't use them.
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But I can't inherit behavior, right? Isn't that one of the compelling things about OOP, again, when used/designed properly? It seems goofy, to me at least.
¡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
Jim Crafton wrote:
But I can't inherit behavior, right? Isn't that one of the compelling things about OOP
Not in my book, except in very specific cases such as GUI libraries. Implementation inheritance is one of the worst ways to reuse code.
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: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
I'm still trying to figure out what this is in response to. :~
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And....? What type of software do you write?
"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
I work for an animation company in their research team. We write software components for 3d rendering, we have a home grown high performance graphics library, our own multicasting library, etc., I'm currently working on a high performance server (MFC for UI and C++ otherwise), and on a thread pool in C. Most of our code works extensively with other applications (other application API) like Maya, Quicktime, etc., Performance is very important here and C#, Java and other things stay outside the gate.
“Follow your bliss.” – Joseph Campbell
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Jim Crafton wrote:
But I can't inherit behavior, right? Isn't that one of the compelling things about OOP
Not in my book, except in very specific cases such as GUI libraries. Implementation inheritance is one of the worst ways to reuse code.
Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
Implementation inheritance is one of the worst ways to reuse code.
That's gotta be one of the craziest things I've heard (today at least). How are you re-using your code?
- S 50 cups of coffee and you know it's on! Code, follow, or get out of the way.
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John C wrote:
In my world my customers want the code fast and they want a *lot* of functionality and they want to never lose their data and as far as performance goes as long as they don't notice anything taking a long time they don't care about it.
In my world there are four major types of applications/solutions. System programs, Small Programs, Medium Business - Applications, Monstrous Corporate-Applications. From all these only the second kind is not always performance critical. And except for the system programs, the choice of the particular language has nothing to do with the performance.
The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
Don't misunderstand me, performance is *always* important, but it's only important to the degree that it's noticeable. If it's not noticeable to the end user it's not at all important for what I'm doing. This is an important point because I think too many developers get caught in the trap of endlessly optimizing or worrying about every millisecond for things that no one will ever notice in the end.
"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
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"A desktop application designed for document collaboration in teams with members who are regularly off-line or who do not share the same network security clearance."
Interesting. So basically the same boat as me: the only areas where performance matters are areas where the end users actually notice a slowness.
"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
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Don't misunderstand me, performance is *always* important, but it's only important to the degree that it's noticeable. If it's not noticeable to the end user it's not at all important for what I'm doing. This is an important point because I think too many developers get caught in the trap of endlessly optimizing or worrying about every millisecond for things that no one will ever notice in the end.
"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
That's a very good point you're making. However, I think that you're completely misunderstood here (at least on this thread). I did get you right to some extent though, and the fact with my workplace is that we need to milk out the best performance. I'm not against .NET either (I'm against Java though, such ugly shit should not exist).
“Follow your bliss.” – Joseph Campbell
