I'm looking for a new language to write server code in. I have been using Node for years but I want something that compiles to machine code and is statically typed.
I've been looking at Go and I like that it is simple, has opinionated, official tooling, compiles very quickly for multiple platforms, is popular enough to have a decent library ecosystem, and I really like the idea of goroutines.
What language would you suggest would be better? Nim sounds cool but it's too new. It's not stable and has a small ecosystem.
It's actually a year older than Go (2008 rather than 2009).
If you don't want to use Nim because it's not stable enough or has too small an ecosystem (I disagree), you could try out Scala Native or Kotlin Native. A large portion of their ecosystem successfully compile to native code (although you may have issues with Scala Native compile times).
I guess I mean "new" as in still not stable (pre-1.0 and still sees breaking changes). The fact it's been around so long and still hasn't matured is not reassuring at all.
> Also, I am not seeing a reason why Go is not a good choice.
I think you may have unnecessarily restricted yourself by wanting a language that produces native binaries and is GC'd. There simply _aren't_ that many mature and mainstream languages that compile to native binaries with a GC. I'd personally much prefer a more expressive language with a less robust ecosystem (and a virtual machine), but if an Elastic lib is a hard requirement for you, then I can't argue with your choice of Go.
Or use Haskell. Native binaries, opinionated, decent library ecosystem ;).
I am already very familiar with 2 interpreted languages, but not very familiar with any compiled languages. I'm doing the exact opposite of restricting myself.
And it's not just Elasticsearch. That's just one example. I would come up against many other requirements. Here's just one more: https://nats.io/download
Edit: And you're right, Haskell is something I should probably look into more. I haven't thought about it too much since I already do a lot of functional programming in JavaScript and I don't hear too much about Haskell being great for creating API servers.
One of my other concerns is that the project I'm planning will be a long-haul, and will have several other developers join in future. I want to have a decent market to choose from. And, being in Australia, it's small enough as it is. I'll shy away from remote workers since it's relating to sensitive healthcare data.
> I am already very familiar with 2 interpreted languages, but not very familiar with any compiled languages. I'm doing the exact opposite of restricting myself.
Like, no, compiling to machine code is only one class of compilation. All the VM-targetting languages have far more robust ecosystems than Go, with good abstractions, performance and tooling to boot. _Any_ language that targets the CLR or JVM should suffice.
It has thousands of libraries, check opam out. If something is absent, why won't you write your own library anyway? Elasticsearch is really not that complex, here is the example:
I addressed that in my other comment. It's not just Elasticsearch. That was one example out of at least 20 I could give you. The fact that there isn't even a client for the world's most popular search database is indicative of the ecosystem as a whole. It's fine if you use OCaml for whatever, but it's not what I'm looking for. Though, I am keeping my eye on this for personal interest: https://reasonml.github.io
>The fact that there isn't even a client for the world's most popular search database is indicative of the ecosystem as a whole.
It indicates that you haven't written one? That's a rather strange attitude, for sure it doesn't have a wrapper for any rest api, what it has is all needed tools for write it, that's what really matters. The tool in repo above does not even use a library, only generated bindings. It's much easier to write a client to a rest api in OCaml than in Go due to derivers [1], atdgen [2] and the power of the language. Take a look at graphql bindings as an example [3] [4].
That's a good thing, but it means I might use Nim in 3-5 years, not right now. As a single dude without a team I need to spend time on getting things done, not building custom clients to databases etc.
My personal problem with Go is that it doesn’t fit in any niche.
If you want language optimized for productivity with a lot of high-level features, use Python. If you want maximum performance and low-level control, use C++ (or C, or Rust). If you need relatively high performance but can tolerate it not being 100% in exchange for nice things like GC, use Java. Where does Go fit?
If we're being serious here, I'm pretty sure Go is specifically for very very large orgs and almost no-one else. Go optimises for low GC pause time, fast compile times and in-your-face concurrency at the expense of almost everything else. The fact that CSP is formalised and well studied, and the lang itself is sufficiently C-like and stripped down makes it amenable to large scale static analysis as well.
IMO there are plenty of reasons for me not to use Java. I could write an essay on it, but the only one that really matters is that for the 4 years that I coded in Java, I didn't enjoy it.
And to suggest Go doesn't offer anything different to Java is just silly.
I've been looking at Go and I like that it is simple, has opinionated, official tooling, compiles very quickly for multiple platforms, is popular enough to have a decent library ecosystem, and I really like the idea of goroutines.
What language would you suggest would be better? Nim sounds cool but it's too new. It's not stable and has a small ecosystem.