My views on Go and why it's better than Scripting

[dorival...@gmail.com]

Hi, I could be wrong (please correct me ;-), but here you are what I think about Go:

INTRODUCTION

Computers and software were initially developed for scientific computing; e.g., ALGOL and FORTRAN from the 1950s! Therefore, several computer languages and libraries have been invented and are used in scientific computing to date.  Nonetheless, when programming a new scientific simulation, the question about computational efficiency versus ease-of-use remains open. Here, we aim to shed light on a suitable answer to this question---TL;DR use Go and Gosl!

One would say that scripting (interpreted) languages might provide the convenient platform for computations as long as care is taken to send intensive tasks to functions pre-compiled with high-performance languages. This strategy fails to create an easy-to-use environment because the programmer needs to think when and where those tasks should go. Considering that this kind of decision is essential for performance, we argue that scripting language is not the best solution.  Furthermore, we argue that scripting is the worst tool for teaching new programmers in scientific computing.

We argue that only experts should use scripting languages (scripts) for computer programming because beginners cannot understand how dangerous the flexibility of scripts can be. For example, the assignment of variables with the same name to different types is often a cause of misunderstandings and failures. To make this problem even worse, failures due to wrong types are not captured at runtime---certainly not at compilation time (there is no compilation time in scripts). In other words, the interpreter is too permissive.  The scientist, if aware (rarely the case with students), will investigate the numerical output and, after much work, will find the source of the error. Therefore, this situation is not ideal. To exemplify, the following is allowed in Python (or Julia---similar syntax):

```

a = 1.0

a = "a" # OK in Python or Julia

```

In the following code, Go will detect the error with a message such as `./test.go:5: cannot use "a" (type string) as type float64 in assignment`:

```

package main

func main() {

    a := 1.0

    a = "a" // not accepted in Go

}

```

The problem propagates in scripting languages when developing objected-oriented code. For example, a member data of a class can be entirely modified by `anyone`, `anywhere` in Python! This issue completely defeats the purpose of encapsulation in OOP.

In summary, scripting (e.g., Python) and alike (e.g., Julia, Matlab) languages are excellent for the expert programmer only who can understand what is going on. However, they are very misleading to the beginner. In other words, the strictness of compiled languages DOES help to learn computer programming. Furthermore, the tools for working with compiled language often take advantage of well-defined types. The shift towards type declaration is so apparent that new languages and strategies are being invented to overcome these issues. For example, TypeScript and Javascript (ES6) combined with FlowType have been recently developed and have a fast adoption among web developers. It seems that no new large project will use non-typed Javascript code.

GO LANGUAGE

Go is a modern programming language created by Google engineers in 2007, including Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson. The language was later made public as open source in 2009. Go has since grown exponentially attracting a large number of co-developers and users. The primary goal leading to the introduction of yet a new language was the combination of efficiency (like C/C++) with ease of development (like Python). There are other several innovations and advantages in Go when compared with mainstream languages such as C/C++/C#/Java/Python/Ruby/Lua. 

Also, Go automatically detects Fortran and C files which helps taking advantage of good existing code.

The vocabulary in Go is quite small compared to other languages, making easy to have an overview of the syntax and available commands. Go avoids complexities such as generics (aka templates) usually available in other languages (e.g., C++). Go also tries to avoid unnecessary complexity by not taking `in the language` advanced OOP concepts such as polymorphism, multiple inheritances, and others. Moreover, Go is somewhat pragmatic in the sense that, if an operation can be made much more straightforward, although slightly orthogonal to the central paradigm, this operation will be carefully defined and adopted in the language specification. These features, thanks to the unquestionable expertise of the core developers, made Go an enjoyable language to work with.

One limitation of some other languages is code organization and package development. For example, C/C++ require the use of `#ifndef`, `#define`, `#endif`, or `#pragma once` everywhere to prevent code being included more than once. In fact, it is frustrating at times to find how to deal with this situation in C/C++, noting that the developer has to worry about what code goes in the header (.h, .hpp) or in the (.c, .cpp) files. Moreover, the cyclic nature of `imports` using C/C++ can be a nightmare.

In Python, the organization of packages sometimes lead to situations where the naming becomes very confusing. For example, we cite the case with matplotlib.pyplot or pylab or other packages called mypackage.mypackage that we find around. As another example, in Julia, module definition is messy, because the user (programmer) has to decide among the files to be included versus module definition. In summary, package definition is not simple in Python or Julia.

On the other hand, Go was designed from the beginning to be multi-modular, prevent cyclic dependency, and made package definition simple. In Go, the solution is based on how the directories are organized. For example, each directory is a package, and all files in the same directory belong to that package. When importing code from other packages, the full path (like URL) of that package is used. There is no need for `header` files in Go! Moreover, the coding of one feature can span multiple files in the same directory. Go comes with a set of tools to build applications and even download third-party code.

Go also has a strict convention for code formatting. In other words, there is only one way to format your code in Go---using braces starting at the end of the line with the `standard` indentation. In this way, a true `standard` exists for Go codes which makes sharing straightforward and quite pleasant; e.g., no one argues about the positioning of braces anymore! Moreover, the strict code convention and specification in Go largely facilitates the development of auxiliary programming tools to process code. For instance, the import field in source code can be automatized as is done with the excellent goimports tool. Many other tools (e.g., vet, lint) take advantage of Go conciseness.

Because files and directories in Go follow a well-defined specification, it is very easy (and fast) to find definitions, code lines, files, and packages (libraries) in Go projects. The compiler in Go benefits from this organization and indeed helps with Go being very fast to compile code---you can run Go code as if it was a scripting language! Furthermore, the excellent specification and organization in Go helped with the creation of many other tools to assist in Go code development.  For instance, we mention the `goimports` and `gorename` that automatically import all dependencies as you type and rename a variable in all code derived from a particular library.

Furthermore, also thanks in part to how well the Go specification and conciseness were invented, there are several other useful and fast commands for handling Go code. For instance, we mention the commands `go run,` `go build`, `go install` and `go get` that perform the operations of running the code, building the code, installing the code and downloading (and compiling) external dependencies automatically.

One particular innovation in Go is the concept of concurrency that can lead to easy-to-write parallel algorithms. Also, Go is a garbage-collected language that makes easier the code development with fewer worries about dangling pointers. Go is in part compiled in Go language and has a reasonably comprehensive standard library, including tools for sorting, templating, encodings, cryptography, compression algorithms, mathematical functions (e.g., for complex numbers), image tools, and even web servers. Furthermore, Go uses the concept of unit tests very well and even includes tools to assist in benchmarking. Also, Go comes with tools to prepare examples and to automate the documentation---there is no need for Doxygen!

The Go language syntax resembles that of C/C++/Java (C-class) but has significant differences. One fundamental difference is the way variables are declared. The type definition comes after the variable name. This difference seems strange at first to C-class programmers, but it makes sense. In fact, it makes reading easy, where one would read `variable and anotherVariable` are `float64` in `variable, anotherVariable float64`---there is no need to type float64 twice (or ten times...). The syntax is particularly convenient when declaring multiple function arguments.

Go uses curly braces to define scope but has a strict rule regarding where the braces can be put and how to deal with indentation. This approach makes the code consistent and easy for collaborations.  Also, with the help of the tools called `goimports` and `gofmt`, the workflow is straightforward. Go allows some constructions similar to the `range` command in Python and does not require the use of parentheses in repetition commands as in C-class.

There is only one repetition command in Go: the `for` keyword. Compared to C-class languages, the syntax of the `switch` command is simpler and more powerful. Because of that, the programmer is induced (positively) to use `switch` over `if` when there is more than one decision branch.

Go code can be directly executed as in: `go run hello.go`. The code could be built first with `go build hello.go' and executed (Linux) with `./hello`. But this last approach is only necessary when deploying the final application. In fact, Go can be used as scripting (using `go run` like `python`).

Variables are defined in two ways: the first one requires the command `var` and the second one uses the assignment operator `:=` which automatically understands the data type. Another great advantage of Go when compared to many other languages is the standardized auto-initialization of all variables to their `zero` default value. For instance, numeric variables declared with `var` are always zero and strings are always empty. This feature can be exploited with advantage by the programmer who may consider variable names such that everything starts zeroed already. For instance, instead of creating a `silent` variable that needs to be set to `true` all the time, it's more convenient to use a `verbose` variable that is always `false` already.

One type that is extensively used in Go is the `slice` of integers or real numbers represented by float point numbers (64-bit version; aka `double` in C-class). Slices in Go are a view to an internal sequence of values; i.e., slices record the start and end positions in memory. Therefore, slices can be passed into functions with minimal overhead. There is hence no need for constantly worrying about `by reference` or `by value`. Pointers can also be used in Go. We use pointers whenever a user-defined structure is to be modified by the called function. In Go, the slice notation `S[s:E]` means a view to array `S` starting at `s` and ending at `E-1`, inclusive.

In conclusion, code written in Go is beautiful, concise and with a very clear logic.

[dorival...@gmail.com]

Thanks for your suggestion!

To put it in context, I'm drafting a plan for my colleagues in order to make a case for using Go in teaching instead of Fortran or C.

[Alex Rice]

Hi, thanks for sharing. I am not convinced about the reasons stated why Go is better than the other languages you mentioned. I am just learning Go, but I have 20 years of experience as a professional developer using various languages. I think students, beginners and professionals should use Go because of it's developer-first attitude. Ergonomics, I've heard it said.

* productivity

* enjoyment
* nice workflow and development tools
* unix philosophy of small chain-able tools

The lissajous example in the the gopl.io [1] book is a great example. In ~50 lines of code, there is a generator of animated gifs of harmonic motion curves, which it serves up on http, or write to standard out. How many lines of code would the same thing be in C, or in Python? I suspect more LOC, and I suspect 3rd party libraries would be involved.

1. https://github.com/adonovan/gopl.io/blob/master/ch1/lissajous/main.go

Cheers,

Alex

[dorival...@gmail.com]

Thanks for your suggestions!

[matthe...@gmail.com]

I like Go because it improves on C for engineers in almost every way and avoids classes, and, at least today, if you have a problem then it will be solved quickly by the people following the GitHub issue tracker and contributing to the source code.

Go avoids complexities such as generics (aka templates) usually available in other languages (e.g., C++).

This may be a temporary state, a major Go 2 discussion is about adding generics (https://github.com/golang/go/issues/15292).

The Go 1 compatibility approach may be worth mentioning: programs written in 2009 will still work in 2019 with the state of the art compiler. 

Select, channels, goroutines, methods, interface, closures, function types, and map may be worth mentioning.

For me seeing a small (<100 lines of code) application more complex than "Hello, world!" written in other languages then in idiomatic Go would help drive the point.

There is hence no need for constantly worrying about `by reference` or `by value`.

This is actually a tough part of Go when deciding how to define methods (by pointer or by value), but at least there’s no pointer arithmetic.

Matt

[Wang Sheng]

I am c++/C expert,  I like because it is easier than C++ and more powerful and flexible than C 

with Golang , you would not need  consider  create/destroy/monitor pthread ,  crazy pointer is not problem also . 

as far as I know , most of golanger is  original user of C/C++ 

在 2018年3月3日星期六 UTC+8上午5:29:45，dorival...@gmail.com写道：

[dorival...@gmail.com]

Great feedback, Matt and Wang. Thanks and Cheers!

[Dan Kortschak]

This was essentially my thinking in choosing Go to write my
bioinformatics library in - mainly because much of our code will be
written and maintained by students, but we want good performance as
well.

Some of my thought about this are in this paper https://www.biorxiv.org
/content/early/2014/05/12/005033

Dan

[dorival...@gmail.com]

Awesome!

I'll read the paper too.

Thanks!

[Rich]

I am a systems administrator. I find it easier and faster to write a program in Go than it is to script it in Bash.  Since writing scripts is something most Sys Admins do I've had to write them in Perl, PHP, TCL, Ruby, etc. and the BIGGEST frustration is that I would get a script written debugged etc. and I'd go to deploy it to the server.   The server doesn't use the right version, or doesn't have the right package installed, and hours of additional work are done to get your script to work. On a production server installing one binary for something like a Nagios alarm I can get away with on a production system, I can't just go and start apt-getting or yum installing a bunch of new packages.  With Go I install the dependancies on MY system -- and that system is a Mac.  Cross compiling is trivial (unless the package it used CGO), and I normally generate code that will run on Windows, Linux, Mac and the 32 / 64 bit variations, and I can copy that one binary on to the system. No DLLs, no installing extra packages, it just runs, no dependency or version headaches.

On Friday, March 2, 2018 at 4:29:45 PM UTC-5, dorival...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi, I could be wrong (please correct me ;-), but here you are what I think about Go:

...

[dorival...@gmail.com]

Thanks for sharing your experience!

[matthe...@gmail.com]

My statement earlier is wrong:

The Go 1 compatibility approach may be worth mentioning: programs written in 2009 will still work in 2019 with the state of the art compiler. 

Go 1 was actually 2012, not 2009. Also Go 2 may start at some point soon, so maybe "programs written in 2012 will still work through at least early 2018 with the state of the art compiler" is closer to correct.

Matt

[Jason E. Aten]

> We argue that only experts should use scripting languages (scripts) for computer programming because beginners cannot understand how dangerous the flexibility of scripts can be. For example, the assignment of variables with the same name to different types is often a cause of misunderstandings and failures. To make this problem even worse, failures due to wrong types are not captured at runtime---certainly not at compilation time (there is no compilation time in scripts). In other words, the interpreter is too permissive.  The scientist, if aware (rarely the case with students), will investigate the numerical output and, after much work, will find the source of the error. Therefore, this situation is not ideal. To exemplify, the following is allowed in Python (or Julia---similar syntax):

>

>```

>a = 1.0

>a = "a" # OK in Python or Julia

>```

Since I wanted the best of both interactive data exploration and statically compiled Go, I made the Go interpreter https://github.com/gijit/gi

Your students could use it to learn Go interactively at the REPL. Type errors like the example above will be caught:

```

$ gi -q                                

gi> a := 1.0                                                                                              

elapsed: '121.083µs'                                                                                      

gi> a = "a"                                                                                               

oops: 'problem detected during Go static type checking: 'where error? err = '1:5: cannot convert "a" (untyped string constant) to float64''' on input 'a = "a"'

gi>

```