Go versus Brand X

Mensanator mensanator at aol.com
Sat Nov 21 21:51:39 EST 2009


On Nov 21, 6:11 pm, Steve Howell <showel... at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Nov 21, 11:20 am, John Roth <johnro... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Nov 21, 8:40 am, Duncan Booth <duncan.bo... at invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> > > a... at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) wrote:
> > > > Comparing Go to another computer language -- do you recognize it?
>
> > > >http://www.cowlark.com/2009-11-15-go/
>
> > > Yes, spotted it at the first 'fi'.
>
> > This isn't the first time anyone has criticized Go. The interesting,
> > and somewhat sad, thing is that the entire mess can be explained
> > very easily by looking at the beginning of the language design
> > FAQ on the Go web site. See if you recognize the names of the
> > principle people who designed it.
>
> > Yep. Go is simply C with most (but not all) of the warts
> > removed and some more modern features added. Brought to you
> > by the same people who brought you C and Unix all those years ago.
> > The use of the Plan 9 toolchain is not a coincidence.
>
> The assertion that Go is simply C with warts removed and modern
> features added is not surprising.
>
> If you read the Go FAQ, you will see that there is no claim anywhere
> that they are trying to solve the problem that 40 years of language
> development since Algol has not produced super-sexy quantum leaps of
> improvement.  Instead, they are trying to solve the problem that in
> the last ten years, there haven not seen ANY improvement in systems
> programming languages ("No major systems language has emerged in over
> a decade").  The critics of Go probably fall into four categories:
>
>   1) Some do not understand the goals of the Go project itself, so
> they are criticizing Go for not solving problems that were never in
> Go's bailiwick to begin with.
>   2) Some believe that Go does not deliver on its goal to modernize
> systems programming languages.
>   3) Some do not accept the premise that there has been no progress
> outside of Go in the last ten years with regards to systems
> programming languages, and they are wondering why Google invented Go
> instead of embracing other technologies.
>   4) Some people do not even believe that the problem is important--do
> we actually need a modern systems programming language, or do we just
> need modern programming languages to perform well under all
> circumstances, or at least be adaptable?
>
> My list probably isn't even nearly exhaustive.

Like those who think Python programmers would be interedted in
Go because it has an import statement.



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