Go 1.19 Beta 1 is released

https://groups.google.com/g/golang-announce/c/SNruPJUSFz0

by ngaut • 4 years ago

47 104 4 years ago

groups.google.com

Thorentis5• 4 years ago

Coming from Python or Java, Go's standard library is worse, and it's syntax is hard to read. I don't get the appeal. Yeah, yeah, performance. Almost every Go project I've seen is not doing anything so ground breaking or performance intensive that this is an issue. Most applications where that is an actual non-func requirement end up going with C/C++ or Rust anyway. /rant

philliphaydon• 4 years ago

.NET is faster than Go for gRPC so I often wonder if it’s worth my time learning Go for performance when it seems same same.

quixoticelixer-2• 4 years ago

Yeah i really don't understand the advantage of go over c#. Async maybe?

morelisp6• 4 years ago

Stock gRPC is not a great demonstration of Go’s possible performance. The code is neither clean nor fast nor idiomatic. I have no idea why it’s so messed up.

(That said, C# and Java are no performance slouches and I expect they’d all be roughly comparable in the end if the Go code didn’t suck so much.)

ainar-g8• 4 years ago

I can get that Go's stdlib is smaller than Python's, but can you elaborate on why you feel that Go's syntax is hard to read compared to Java? Because both of them are very much C-like languages, syntax-wise.

erik_seaberg3• 4 years ago

if err != nil is continuously painful. f(g(), h()) with error handling takes nine lines, maybe twelve? Everybody has to use Errorf() everywhere or nobody gets a stack trace.

There are no stdlib filter/map/reduce yet, and generics are new enough that most people are still writing the same for-range loops over and over. Lambdas don’t capture loop variable values.

x, y := f() sometimes assigns and sometimes shadows an outer scope.

defer isn’t block scoped, you have to simulate the code to figure out which calls are stacked at this point. Hopefully they’re added deterministically, but you can keep deferring stuff in a loop if you want.

(This is aside from the many ways Scala and Kotlin are far more readable than Java.)

Thorentis5• 4 years ago

1) Function signatures do not read in the same way as most other languages. This "muscle memory" is a barrier to unlearn when moving to Go, and I don't see any good reason for it other than "being different".

2) No try/catch. Inexcusable in my opinion.

3) The syntax for declaring maps/arrays looks gross. Again, being different for the sake of it.

4) No while loops. The for loop syntax is not too bad, but I think this was again a choice made out of trying to simplify things when not a single person ever complained that "Java/C has too many types of loops".

I could go on, but in general my opinion is that Go deviated from some good established norms for no good reason, and this makes it much harder to adopt. It also isn't fun when you have a code base with e.g. Go and Java or Go and C# mixed in. The mental overhead of having an entirely different syntax to reason about is frustrating. And for what benefit? At least list comprehensions in Python are nice to read. I can't think of anything that is nice to read in Go.

siscia2• 4 years ago

The appeal of go is that it is easy to learn, you can put any young person just out of college and have it produces a lot of line of code that resemble something working.

The reality is that go is a very hard language to master and to avoid footgun. But it is an hard truth that few people are willing to accept.

ainar-g8• 4 years ago

Can you provide examples of the things that are hard to master and the footguns?

jpgvm12• 4 years ago

There is really no reason to go from Java to Go.

Go may win out in the early days of a program for resource usage and perceived complexity but by the time your team has cooked up some frankenstien of an application framework and tried to standardize logging, metrics, etc you would have been better off in JVM land from the start. At least then you can pick battle-tested and supported frameworks.

Python, Ruby, JS/TS -> Go is a weird one though. I can understand why when people make that transition they think Go is the best thing since sliced bread. It's by far one of the easiest languages to learn, it's miles faster than what they are coming from and the tooling is way less shit than those interpreted languages.

However all of those languages represent a very very low bar. I think if the same people could be convinced to try Kotlin (or even modern Java) they would be a) surprised how easy it is these days and b) finally understand that it's ecosystem and tooling that really matters at the end of the day.

Though I have to say Go existing is by and large a good thing even if I don't like it. It helps get people off things like Typescript which are absolute garbage-tier onto something half-reasonable. When they grow out of Go they generally end up somewhere better, just takes a few years.

tragomaskhalos3• 4 years ago

One area where Go has quickly established a niche is in tooling, for example Terraform. Here the benefits of being able to run a single (non-containerised) binary vs having to fret about what version of Java your punters happen to have installed in compelling no?

johnisgood2• 4 years ago

I am not sure what you are trying to say. That Go does not have a place because Python and Java exist? My personal experience: I cannot get anything related to cryptography done in Java, thanks to its standard library. I would choose Go over both Python and Java. The choice depends on a lot of things. Regardless, all I get from your message is that you mind the existence of Go, which I believe is silly.

Thorentis5• 4 years ago

The solution to a good stdlib for eg crypto should not be a new language. This just complicates the landscape. C++ and Python have fantastic crypto libraries. Trying to get one included in Java would've been time better spent than coming up with an abomination of a new language. Go's stdlib has massive gaps in other areas (the fact you still have to write your own "contains" method for slices is a joke).

fulafel• 4 years ago

Lots of people dislike Java for reasons that don't apply to Go and Python.

konart7• 4 years ago

Java, Go's ... it's syntax is hard to read.

Excuse me but Java? This is as subjective as it can be.

qsort• 4 years ago

Java's syntax is the most bog-standard Algol you can imagine. There's definitely some subjectivity to it, but how is Java hard to read?

Thorentis5• 4 years ago

Java's core syntax is very similar to existing languages. Function signatures, loops, var declarations, error handling. Excluding access restrictors (public/private), you could pass it off as C/C++/C#/Python with braces/PHP without $/etc.

There isn't a ton about Java's syntax to be super opinionated on, compared to Go, simply due to how unique Go's syntax is.

guggle• 4 years ago

Coming from Python in the field of web backends/webservices, I just find Java's ecosystem in general has too much ceremony. Go is fairly straight forward, to the point. I don't care too much for performance, but being lightweight on resources is a nice plus compared to Python (smaller VMs) and deployment is much easier. Yes, I do miss some language features (exceptions, classes...), but it's still very manageable. Of course Python has third party libraries for everything, but Go has all the basics for web services in the standard library. C++/Rust is out as I have no such performance requirement and GC is fine in my case. So that's it... Go fills a niche like a lot of other languages, so why not ?

jurschreuder• 4 years ago

I once made a video streaming platform in Python. It needed 2 big 10k euro servers to run.

I then rewrote the backend in Go, which gave a 90% performance increase.

It could now run all the streams on any normal pc.

kaba017• 4 years ago

Python is the slowest mainstream language by a factor of 10. You could have easily gotten that much increase by going to even JS. Go is not faster than other mainstream managed languages like C#, Java, JS .

MarkSweep• 4 years ago

Interesting to see LoongArch64 support pop up in more places.

kumarvvr2• 4 years ago

Dotnet and C# are a killer combination and I frankly dont get why go has to be even considered.

Go syntax is very cognitively demanding. Maybe I am getting old or have become used to C#, but between reading well formed go and C# code, C# always wins for me.

KronisLV4• 4 years ago

You might as well say the same about Java (with select codebases), or even Python. Or, for the folks who have familiarity with different stacks, maybe something along the lines of Ruby, Node or whatever else they enjoy more.

Admittedly, a lot of it comes down to personal preference and familiarity with different technologies.

Though in regards to Go in particular, on a technical level:

  - it's simple to build self-contained executables, it's up there with the likes of FreePascal in this regard
  - it's also a relatively simple language that's easy to pick up and use, in contrast to how complex code can get with C# and Java
  - it also has fewer footguns than C or C++ without the complexity of Rust (which some might prefer), although it doesn't try to do as much
  - it has a decent community and lots of useful packages, even the included http libraries are nice to just get things done
  - it doesn't have a history of challenging versioning and platform support, when compared with .NET (Windows only support with IIS for legacy projects, anyone?)
  - the performance is generally good enough

All of that combined means that Go is nice for writing both quick utilities, as well as smaller and larger services alike. Just look at Nomad, a container orchestration platform, the executables of which can be shipped as a single binary: https://www.nomadproject.io/downloads

Overall, it's pretty good for just getting things done in a reasonable amount of time and a limited amount of headaches. For example, Python might lead to code that is easier to write and read, but packaging can be a nightmare. Java might be better for select enterprise systems, but configuration is generally a bit of a mess there. .NET is a good alternative, but some folks also try to steer clear of Microsoft and tooling on *nix can be limited, much like it is for Java (your best bet would be to use JetBrains commercial products, since MonoDevelop isn't all that popular anymore, Visual Studio Code plugins wouldn't give you a "full IDE" experience and there is nothing quite like Eclipse or NetBeans for .NET).

Further thoughts: the age of a language might also coincide with how loved or dreaded it is, since we simply don't see that many horrible enterprise monolith messes written in Go as of yet: https://earthly.dev/blog/brown-green-language/

kumarvvr2• 4 years ago

it's simple to build self-contained executables

Also doable in dotnet

it's also a relatively simple language that's easy to pick up and use, in contrast to how complex code can get with C# and Java

Go is not a simple language. It has made choices of syntax that are baffling. Not to mention the mess that is exceptions and generics.

C# and Java, on the other hand, feel natural to read.

it also has fewer footguns than C or C++ without the complexity of Rust (which some might prefer), although it doesn't try to do as much

C# is the same in this case. Far fewer footguns.

it has a decent community and lots of useful packages, even the included http libraries are nice to just get things done

C# wins, but perhaps because it has been around for so long. But its ecosystem is very good.

it doesn't have a history of challenging versioning and platform support, when compared with .NET (Windows only support with IIS for legacy projects, anyone?)

Things change, systems change, environments change. At present, C# and dotnet are truly cross platform and are amazing platforms.

the performance is generally good enough

In Go, as your program size and team gets bigger, code management becomes harder. C#, along with Visual Studio is at its productive best, whether its with one developer or a 100 developers.

kaba017• 4 years ago

it's also a relatively simple language that's easy to pick up and use, in contrast to how complex code can get with C# and Java

I never really understood this claim. Arguably, assembly is even less complex of a language, yet you would be hard pressed to say it is readable. Primitive primitives don’t necessarily result in readable code. For example a declarative description of what should happen with a stream of data is much more readable in many cases than 4 nested for loops with breaks and ifs.

But back to the topic, while there is a (fortunately getting less and less relevant) branch of Java which is very into needless abstractions, the language is a very small and easy to pickup one, allowing very readable and concise programs.

dustinmoris• 4 years ago

It's the opposite for me. C# is becoming a complete clusterfuck of half baked features, bad historical choices, fear from Microsoft product owners to clean up the language and deprecate some old shit that is just polluting the language and making it hard for new beginners to learn and the worst of all, C# has a huge identity crisis and it shows in the yearly updates. The language changes so much every year that it's too tiresome to keep up with, it's increasingly more confusing and it is very unclear if C# wants to be an OOP language, an FP language or some weird jack of all trades. It's a horrible choice for beginners and I have seen many newbies who absolutely got frustrated by C#.

Go is very neat, true to its core identity and very very stable. I have been developing .NET (C# and F#) for almost 20 years and I don't enjoy it at all anymore.

EDIT:

Just last week the .NET team tweeted that they are looking to introduce green threads to .NET after all. I love the green thread implementation in Go and I think it is superior to .NET's async/await model which get scheduled by OS threads, but .NET has gone down that route many years ago and it's embedded everywhere now and introducing such a new fundamental change now is just plain fucking stupid. Microsoft is so dumb for even thinking this is a good thing to do. If they don't like how C# works then invent a new language with modern fundamentals which you like but stop changing C# so much that it's become completely unrecognisable. .NET developers don't want to rewrite their code bases every 12 months. We have real work to do.

nikivi• 4 years ago

Is it possible to install the beta with brew?

I tried instructions on the site:

$ go install golang.org/dl/go1.19beta1@latest

$ go1.19beta1 download

But I don't get where the new binary is placed. It's not in my PATH.

dmitshur• 4 years ago

The go1.19beta1 binary (which you would use to try Go 1.19 Beta 1) should be placed in the usual place where 'go install' places them. If you’re using Go’s defaults, it’s likely $HOME/go/bin, unless you’ve set either GOPATH or GOBIN env vars to point somewhere else.

Go 1.19 Beta 1 is released

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