Google Go

[Trevor Toenjes]

Go attempts to combine the development speed of working in a dynamic
language like Python with the performance and safety of a compiled
language like C or C++. In our experiments with Go to date, typical
builds feel instantaneous; even large binaries compile in just a few
seconds.

What do y'all think of Go?
or the announcement?

http://golang.org/

[Bruce Frederiksen]

I took a quick look at this.  It comes across as being very ad-hoc (vs well thought out, like say sml which is defined with a rigorous mathematical formulation).  I get the impression that this is an attempt to salvage type-safe languages by the crowd that views dynamically typed languages (such as Python) as "unsafe".  It's strange that the biggest selling point seems to be speed of compiling the programs.

The one thing that maybe looked interesting is their "goroutine" (coroutine) feature.  It has "channels" and a "go" prefix to start a "thread".  So it looks like it may be a better solution than Python's generators.  But it still smelled somewhat ad-hoc and I expect that it has it's own quirks and dark alleys.

I saw nothing that would make me convert from Python!  ... or even make me interested enough to spend more time looking at it.

But I think that this also shows that I'm not the only one that thinks that the C language (and C++) are basically dead languages.  If you had to write a major new project today from scratch, who would want to do it in C or C++?

And, by extension then, Linux (and Windows) are dead operating systems.

The question is, if you were going to write a new operating system, and not use C, what language would you use?

And I am thinking more and more that the best language, hands down, would be Python -- except for one, and only one, issue: performance.  If Python performed as well as (or nearly as well as) C, why would you want to use anything else?

Thanks for the heads up!

Comments welcome!  I'd be interested in what others think too.  Who agrees with me?  Disagrees?  And why?

-Bruce

[desNotes]

From what I read regarding Go vs. Stackless Python, Python was faster
even when adding in compile time. Go is new and some of the issues
with it today may be resolved, so it's hard to compare to Python,
which has been around and has matured. I agree with Bruce that
currently there isn't anything in Go to take interest away from Python
but I will be watching the language to see how it develops. Its always
good to have more than one programming language in your pocket and Go
has potential