A conversation with the Go team

http://blog.golang.org/a-conversation-with-the-go-team

by enneff • 13 years ago

76 16 13 years ago

blog.golang.org

galaktor2• 13 years ago

"What surprises me is that almost nobody complains about the lack of generics."

Strange. Lack of generics is probably the single most common thing I read/hear people complain about.

(Btw, I like and use Go)

unoti• 13 years ago

I noticed that too. That quote starts with him saying "A lot of developers that seriously tried Go are very happy with it." I imagine that Robert hears about generics an awful lot, so he seems to be saying that the people who complain about generics are not people who have seriously tried Go. Very likely, he's right. There's some selection bias, though, because the people who can't live without generics generally perform a flaming exorcism on the language before long.

coldtea• 13 years ago

His is an extreme case of "no true Scotchman" ("no guy that truly tried Go complains about Generics...") and confirmation bias (since those that stick to it, are happy with the status quo) together...

Lots of people have both tried Go, legitimately, and are still concerned about lack of Generics. I've read several that have done so, and have tried it myself and would like Generics. But sure, I could use it, and even enjoy it, even without Generics. That doesn't mean I'm perfectly happy with the situation.

BenDaglish• 13 years ago

That's the problem with reported conversation - I suspect there was a smile on his face as he was saying that, and I for one was expecting an "(audience laughter)" at the end of the sentence.

galaktor2• 13 years ago

True, Rob's jokes can be very dry and subtle. If he ever looks at the golang-nuts Google group [1] (which he evidently does) there's no way this couldn't have been sarcasm. Many questions from newbies touch on the topic of generics.

[1] https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/golang-nu...

jbarham• 13 years ago

It's almost certainly a joke since complaints about the lack of generics in Go probably generate the most heat on the mailing list.

For example here is a recent thread on the list that quickly degenerated into an epic flamewar: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/golang-n.... (Most amusingly the OP's chosen handle is "Sod Almightly", a pretty strong signal that the guy is a troll, although props to Ian Taylor in particular for keeping civil throughout.)

_pmf_• 13 years ago

Masterfully executed. Especially delightful is that the first response is "No one is likely to debate this with you", which is promptly followed by 9 pages of discussion.

tcard• 13 years ago

As I understand it, he is pointing out that people who really get deep into using the language with a constructive purpose don't complain about such perceived issue. Also a pun against early judges.

He wrote more about this here: http://commandcenter.blogspot.com.es/2011/12/esmereldas-imag...

EDIT: Well, the answerer of that question was Robert (Griesemer), not Rob (Pike), but I suppose the same applies.

tocomment• 13 years ago

Sorry what's a generic? Can you explain it in Delphi 6 terms? er actually Python terms would be even better.

hugorodgerbrown• 13 years ago

Generics are used to defer type setting from compile time to run time, allowing for flexible, yet type-safe constructs.

The classic example is a list (in a strongly-typed language) - without generics you would create specialised strongly-typed list classes - you could have a StringList (only strings), an IntList (only ints), etc.

Using generics you can define a single list class of type <T>, where <T> is any type. Then at runtime you would create a List<String> or a List<Int>. Same outcome, less code, easier to maintain.

MSDN has a good intro to C# generics - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms379564(v=vs.80).as...

They are less appropriate in dynamic languages, as type-safety isn't a compile time concern.

lobster_johnson• 13 years ago

Example of generics: In Delphi, you have TList. It stores any TObject, but it's not type safe, so if you store something like TPerson in it, you have to cast it every time:

    List := TList.Create();
    Person := TPerson(List[0]);

With generics, you would have something like:

    List := TList<TPerson>.Create();
    Person := List[0];

The TList<TPerson> class would be compiled at compile time and offer the same kind of type safety as, say, an array.

In C++ it would be something like (simplified):

    template <class T>
      class TList {
        private:
          T[] elements;
        public:
          void add(T value);
          void remove(T value);
          T operator[](int index);
      };

This extends to other declarations. For example, in C++ you can have generic functions. So you can have a functon max(a, b) which works on any type, for example.

Generics is essentially about enhancing compile-time type safety and reusing code. By giving the type system more intelligence, more checks can be performed at compile time, and code can use the same logic across multiple types instead of having to be reimplemented for each type.

Incidentally, Delphi has had generics since 2007 [1]. I haven't used Delphi since version 5, so I haven't tried it out, but it looks fairly similar to the generics in C#.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_programming#Genericity_...

ilSignorCarlo• 13 years ago

It was so disappointing when I realized it was not referred to the band

skinofstars• 13 years ago

Yep, but at least it's a good reminder to listen to them.

A conversation with the Go team

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