[AdieuToLogic]

> > or making the language unacceptably crippled like Go

> ... if the only takeaway from Go for you is that it is “unacceptably crippled” then I feel you have missed a lot of insight.

Perhaps the author used a poor choice of words and instead could have phrased their intent along the lines of:

Go lacks the semantic density needed to express solutions in both a concise and consistent manner.

Were this the case, it would be hard to disagree as Go does, indeed, lack linguistic capabilities present in other programming languages which enable developers to encode system constraints within the language itself. Some might see this as a benefit, but I do not. YMMV.

A similar philosophy of "keep the language dirt-simple so anyone can code in it" was a driving force behind Java (the language) and JavaScript. What people have discovered is that when a programming language does not assist in expressing intrinsic problem complexity explicitly, it becomes implicitly intertwined within the source itself.

[ErotemeObelus]

I think it's a syntax problem. ASCII doesn't have enough bracket characters to simply & clearly represent necessary language features. So it's harder for an intelligent human to sort and categorize these aspects.

Pre-generics Java is about the appropriate amount of language complexity for our current lingua franca

[AdieuToLogic]

> Pre-generics Java is about the appropriate amount of language complexity for our current lingua franca

I am not sure to whom you are referencing as being "our", so I can only say I disagree as there are many developers which are quite adept in languages having more complexity than "pre-generics Java."

Perhaps you meant to reply to a different comment?

[pjmlp]

It surely isn't mine, otherwise I wouldn't be happily using Java 13 right now.

Also even Google does have more stuff going on Java, C++, Dart, Kotlin and TypeScript than Go, which has more uptake outside Googleplex.

[erik_seaberg]

Java is tolerably mediocre now but vintage 1996 Java was awful (and slow). I enjoy Scala, but even I can see why it's more than most of the industry is ready for. If there's a sweet spot, Kotlin seems close to it.

[coldtea]

Err, we had 10x times the features of "Pre-generics Java" even in 1970s Lisp and Smalltalk...

[Gene_Parmesan]

I will gladly trade a little bit more language complexity if it means the complexity of the code that I write using that language is simpler.

[erik_seaberg]

This. When a platform refuses to solve a problem, that problem doesn't go away. The users are forced to roll their own solutions, none of which have the same test coverage and optimization opportunities.

[EdwardDiego]

Generics don't make Java that much more complex for your workaday Java coding.

[jjoonathan]

Speak for yourself.

[bsg75]

> Go lacks the semantic density needed to express solutions in both a concise and consistent manner.

That is a difficult statement for a Go user to parse.

It is referring to a lack of language features that result in verbosity or boilerplate?

[coldtea]

There's a lack of language features that result in verbosity, boilerplate, less performance and/or less type safety.