[kbenson]

Embedded programming, kernel programming, high-performance computing. I view all of these as variations on systems programming.

> What does that tell me? I might assume it meant manual memory management or a language suitable for writing a kernel, but the Go people call that a "system programming language" even though neither of those things applies.

I'm not sure picking one relatively odd member of a category and concluding that since it doesn't match in some aspects that the category doesn't exist is useful. To stay with the theme, you might encounter 24 Hours of LeMons[1] at some point, and I don't think that makes the idea of race cars invalid or useless (there's a reason I said a 70's Pinto might be acceptable).

You can do some systems programming with garbage collected languages, or even dynamic languages in a pinch. It's not ideal in the vast majority of cases, but there are certain situations where it's not entirely unacceptable either (running the webserver in the same language as your dynamic site is implemented in is one).

1: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/19/how-an-amateur-launched-a-mil...

[lmm]

> I'm not sure picking one relatively odd member of a category and concluding that since it doesn't match in some aspects that the category doesn't exist is useful. To stay with the theme, you might encounter 24 Hours of LeMons[1] at some point, and I don't think that makes the idea of race cars invalid or useless (there's a reason I said a 70's Pinto might be acceptable).

Is Go an odd example then? What's a typical example? Better, out of the 10 or 20 most popular programming languages, which are "systems languages" and which are not? I genuinely don't know how to tell, other than maybe "no GC". As far as I can tell the term mainly just means "language I like".

[kbenson]

In the current context of contemporary languages I would consider system languages, having GC definitely defines one as abnormal, and Go is abnormal for a systems language. It was apparently much less uncommon to have GC system languages in the past (but I suspect those languages were well adapted to having fine grain memory control coupled with GC). Go is an interesting mix of low-level and close-to-the-metal with a few aspects which are not low-level (channels and GC).