[cies]

> Go isn't for programmers, it's for managers.

Doesn't Java fit the same bill? (although it was kinda modern at the time)

> I think you are right about explicit nullability

Sadly it's really hard to shoe-horn this onto Go, now that the std lib is widely used. Same for proper sum types (which can then be used for multiple return values).

But the continuation of the nullability mistake puzzles me the most... And that wile Go's be designed by big name lang gurus: what were they thinking?

[skohan]

> Doesn't Java fit the same bill? (although it was kinda modern at the time)

Yes, I think Java was an earlier attempt at this.

> Sadly it's really hard to shoe-horn this onto Go, now that the std lib is widely used. Same for proper sum types (which can then be used for multiple return values).

I agree, I think these types of features are much easier to design around than to add into a mature ecosystem later

> But the continuation of the nullability mistake puzzles me the most... And that wile Go's be designed by big name lang gurus: what were they thinking?

Is it just a timing thing? It seems like explicit nullability came onto the mainstream a few years after Go debuted, but maybe it was already discussed in academic circles before then.

[cies]

> Is it just a timing thing? It seems like explicit nullability came onto the mainstream a few years after Go debuted, but maybe it was already discussed in academic circles before then.

I know OCaml[1] has it ('93) and Haskell[2] ('90). Also the claim that implicit nullability is a mistake was made in 2009[3] (around the same time Go was released).

Given the seniority of the designers of Go, I expect they had knowledge of this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCaml

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_(programming_language)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hoare

[tome]

ML had "it" in 1973!

... if "it" is even a thing. I would say that it's not, rather implicit nullability is the thing. It's just not something you'd do in a typed language unless you really specifically chose it. That's how Hoare could claim it was his billion dollar mistake. Implicit nullability was a thing he (and subsequent language designers) opted in to.