Go! -- the non-Google programming language by Keith Clark and Francis McCabe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go!_(programming_language)

by amichail • 17 years ago

82 35 17 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

amichail2• 17 years ago

Also see: http://code.google.com/p/go/issues/detail?id=9

amichail2• 17 years ago

It's funny how McCabe appears to be upset.

This is the best thing that could have happened to popularize his research.

RK• 17 years ago

Maybe "appears" is key here...

Rantenki• 17 years ago

Especially considering how much his language goals and appearance resemble Erlang (which itself borrowed period termination, among other things from Prolog, so it is probably a common root thing).

stevejohnson• 17 years ago

McCabe's response, from the Issue 9 thread:

"I am very grateful for the support I have received on this thread. It seems to have hit a nerve.

I want to make one particular point, some people have suggested that "I should be grateful" for the extra advertising. My response to that is that I was not actively looking for this advertising. It was not me who picked a clashing name.

I fully understand that it is possible that insufficient search was done before hand. However, when I picked the name Go! I did try to find out if anyone else was using it. In fact, I was kind of surprised that no one was!; since it was clearly a great name.

For those interested, Go! is a bi-lingual pun. My previous work focused on a language called April. In Japanese, the literal back-translation of April is "4th Month". Go is Japanese for 5."

jrockway• 17 years ago

Wow, Reddit is totally the new 4chan now. Awesome.

dschobel2• 17 years ago

Is this language significant for any reason other than sharing a name with Google's new language?

huhtenberg• 17 years ago

Its notability is in that it existed well before Google's Go, and so latter would've been better off selecting a different name.

ebrenes• 17 years ago

There are several languages that have great similarity in names and some only differ by a character or few characters: C, C++, C#, Cω, Ch; X++, XL, XSL; Go, Go!, Goo.

So why again should Google make the name change?

tedunangst• 17 years ago

But somehow not notable enough to have a wikipedia page until today.

fizx• 17 years ago

Obscure languages are like art in someone's attic. It could be a Van Gogh, or a child's finger painting. Valid answers to your question include "To whom?" and "Not yet (if ever)."

Signed, an obscure language writer

dschobel2• 17 years ago

Well that's just my point. The only notoriety this language has is because of a naming clash, not for any legitimate technical merit.

tibbon• 17 years ago

Seems that Google didn't well... 'Google' for 'go programming language' first.

This type of stuff happens. As per a thread suggestion on the issue tracker, they've already registered Golang.org and its redirecting to their site. For all we know, they are reworking the graphical and text assets right now to make this a full switch.

akamaka• 17 years ago

This Wikipedia article was written today. There's links to a few publications, but no compiler, no homepage.

I'm not a big fan of Wikipedia's deletionists, but I hope they go after this page. Musing about something in a few research papers doesn't make it notable.

chaosmachine• 17 years ago

Aside from the research articles, there is also a text book:

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/lets-go/641689

http://books.google.com/books?isbn=0975444913

jacquesm• 17 years ago

> I'm not a big fan of Wikipedia's deletionists, but I hope they go after this page.

How is that for a contradiction... Google launched their 'Go' language today, and it definitely is great that someone took the trouble to put this stake in the ground. Whether it is notable or not is debatable, I think the simple fact that there is a namespace collision between two programming languages is reason enough to make it notable.

It is all over the web, thanks to the efforts of the author, if it wasn't 'notable' yesterday it certainly is now.

http://econsultancy.com/blog/4954-google-go-was-the-name-alr...

rdtsc• 17 years ago

I have to agree. Google should have known better before naming a new language "go" in 2009.

It is hard to believe, they didn't think by now someone else would have come up with that name for a language.

Or did assume they would just throw a bunch money and lawyers at whoever comes out claiming the name.

Something similar happened to http://www.wxwidgets.org (ex-wxWindows). Microsoft payed the author some money and he changed the name of the project. I don't think that would be such a bad outcome.

zach• 17 years ago

Indeed, and I would dismiss this out of hand, but someone fairly recently made a similar argument along the lines of "hey, our previously-obscure programming language existed in some form before the popular language was announced, so we have as much of a right to the name."

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=924510

flogic• 17 years ago

There is a "Download Link" at the bottom.

teilo• 17 years ago

To an iDisk site.

And that speaks volumes.

rwhitman• 17 years ago

According to http://code.google.com/p/go/issues/detail?id=9 Google's "Go" has now been renamed by the people to "Issue 9" spread the word

techiferous2• 17 years ago

http://issuenine.com

raghus2• 17 years ago

How is this authoritative? This page was created today

techiferous2• 17 years ago

Doesn't authority come from accuracy, not recency? If you see any part of the article that is inaccurate, you should edit it and make it more authoritative.

raghus2• 17 years ago

True, but at the heart of this assertion is that Go was already a language name that was taken _before_ Google used it.

Which might entirely be true.

But that assertion would be strengthened by pointing to a link/post that was somewhat _older_.

joubert• 17 years ago

Wikipedia is the über-encyclopædia. ;-)

barrkel• 17 years ago

RemObjects had a compiler for Object Pascal targeting .NET called... Chrome. When the browser came out, they ended up renaming it Oxygene.

sjs2• 17 years ago

lesson: pick your battles

Go! -- the non-Google programming language by Keith Clark and Francis McCabe.

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