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by pcthrowaway 1246 days ago
> Go has computer-sciencey-correctness goals (hence all the kerfluffle over generics)

I really don't understand this. The debate over generics had nothing to do with "computer sciencey correctness" goals, they had to do with ergonomics. Of course, from Ruby, the idea of typing your code is completely foreign, but imagine if a function only allowed one type of parameter, and if you wanted another you had to define it again with a different name.

Basically like allowing flexible parameters makes function definitions more flexible, a lot like all the metaprogramming business in Ruby
1 comments
RangerScience 1246 days ago
> the idea of typing your code is completely foreign

I don't understand this?

> I really don't understand [Go has computer-sciencey-correctness goals]

My impression (way back when, TBH when Go was first announced and discussed) was that the language creators had some Very Strong Ideas about how to do various things 'much more correctly', and/or to avoid specific pain-points they'd had in other languages, and that those things informed a lot of the decisions about Golang; in particular the module system, generics, and error handling.

I'm calling that "computer-sciencey-correctness goals", perhaps incorrectly, as I also got the impression their goals and methods were heavily informed by CS research into computer languages.

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pcthrowaway 1245 days ago
No I don't necessarily disagree about Go, I just don't understand what generics have to do with that.

Are you suggesting generics were divisive because computer science-y people didn't want them or wanted them the best way?

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RangerScience 1245 days ago
Every language has goals. Many of them explicitly state those goals.

1. https://the-zen-of-go.netlify.app/ 2. https://peps.python.org/pep-0020/ 3. https://thethreevirtues.com/ (perl, arguably) 4. https://rubyonrails.org/doctrine

You will end up sacrificing other things in favor of your principles. Other languages sacrifice developer happiness for theirs. Ruby sacrifices other things in favor of developer happiness.

That's it. Everything else is [my] speculation about why people chose their particular principles.

Citation note: I've always heard that "Developer Happiness" is a thing from Matz (Ruby's language creator), but the only place I'm finding it explicitly stated is in the Rails doctrine.

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