[evalijnyi]

Is it just me or did anyone else completely miss Caddy for it's opening sentence?

>Caddy is a powerful, extensible platform to serve your sites, services, and apps, written in Go.

To me it reads that if your application is not written in Go, don't bother

[jeroenhd]

The Go crowd, like the Rust crowd, likes to advertise the language their software is written in. I agree that that specific sentence is a bit ambiguous, though, as if it's some kind of middleware that hooks into Go applications.

It's not, it's just another standalone reverse proxy.

[SteveNuts]

> The Go crowd, like the Rust crowd, likes to advertise the language their software is written in.

Probably because end users appreciate that usually that means a single binary + config file and off you go. No dependency hell, setting up third party repos, etc.

[0x457]

> Probably because end users appreciate that usually that means a single binary + config file and off you go. No dependency hell, setting up third party repos, etc.

Until you have to use some plugin (e.g. cloudflare to manage DNS for ACME checks), now it's exactly "dependency hell, setting up third party repos, etc."

I also fully expect to see a few crashes from unchecked `err` in pretty much any Go software. Also, nginx qualifies for `single binary + config`, it's just NGINX is for infra people and Caddy is for application developers.

[airstrike]

Fortunately I don't think any of that applies to Rust ;-)

[0x457]

Actually, all of it applies to rust. The only stable ABI in Rust is C-ABI and IMO at that point it stops being rust. Even dynamically loading rustlib in rust application is unsafe and only expected to work when both compiled with the same version. In plugins context, it's the same as what Caddy making you do.

However, Rust Evangelical Strike Force successfully infiltrated WASM committee and when WASM Components stabilize, it can be used for plugins in some cases (see Zed and zellij). (Go can use them as well, rust is just the first (only?) to support preview-2 components model.

[airstrike]

Yeah, I don't really do dynamic loading in my corner of Rust. And I can always target some MSRV, cargo package versions, and be happy with it. Definitely beats the dependency hell I've had to deal with elsewhere

[0x457]

When I see software written in Go, I know that it has a very sad plugin support story.

[kbolino]

Terraform providers seem to work pretty well, but as far as I know, they're basically separate executables and the main process communicates with them using sockets.

[0x457]

Yes, works very well for terraform. You probably can see why it's not going to work for a webserver?

[unification_fan]

Why should a reverse proxy give a single shit about what your lang application is written in

[evalijnyi]

It shouldn't, which is why I think wording there is strange. Nginx doesen't market itself as "platform to serve your sites, services, and apps, written in C". Reading the first sentence I don't even know what Caddy is, what does a platform mean in this context? Arriving on Nginx's site the first sentence visible to me is

>nginx ("engine x") is an HTTP web server, reverse proxy, content cache, load balancer, TCP/UDP proxy server, and mail proxy server.

Which is perfect

[suraci]

when it says 'written in Go', the subtext is - i'm fast, i'm new, i'm modern, go buddies love me please

the better one is 'written in rust', the subtext is - i'm fast, i'm new, i'm futurism, and i'm memory-safe, rust buddies love me please

--- cynicism end ---

i do think sometimes it's worth to note the underlying tech stack, for example, when a web server claims it's based on libev, i know it's non-blocking

[jchw]

Back when Caddy first came out over 10 years ago, the fact that it was written in Go was just simply more notable. For Go, it also at least tells you the software is in a memory-safe programming language. Now neither of those things is really all that notable, for new software.

[PeterCorless]

I didn't even read the article, but I love the comments on the thread.

Yes. The implementation language of a system should not matter to people in the least. However, they are used as a form of prestige by developers and, sometimes, as a consumer warning label by practitioners.

"Ugh. This was written in <language-I-hate>."

"Ooo! This was written in <language-I-love>!"

[jchw]

There's certainly some aspect of that going on, but I think mainly it's just notable when you write something in a programming language that is relatively new.

Does it matter? In theory no, since you can write pretty much anything in pretty much any language. In practice... It's not quite that black and white. Some programming languages have better tooling than others; like, if a project is written in pure Go, it's going to be a shitload easier to cross compile than a C++ project in most cases. A memory-safe programming language like Go or Rust will tell you about the likely characteristics of the program: the bugs are not likely to be memory or stack corruption bugs since most of the code can't really do that. A GC'd language like Go or Java will tell you that the program will not be ideal for very low latency requirements, most likely. Some languages, like Python, are languages that many would consider easy to hack on, but on the other hand a program written in Python probably doesn't have the best performance characteristics, because CPython is not the fastest interpreter. The discipline that is encouraged by some software ecosystems will also play a role in the quality of software; let's be honest, everyone knows that you CAN write quality software in PHP, but the fact that it isn't easy certainly says something. There's nothing wrong with Erlang but you may need to learn about deploying BEAM in production before actually using Erlang software, since it has its own unique quirks.

And this is all predicated on the idea that nobody ever introduces a project as being "written in C." While it's definitely less common, you definitely do see projects that do this. Generally the programming language is more of a focus for projects that are earlier in their life and not as refined as finished products. I think one reason why it was less common in the past is because writing that something is written in C would just be weird. Of course it's written in C, why would anyone assume otherwise? It would be a lot more notable, at that point, if it wasn't.

I get why people look at this in a cynical way but I think the cynical outlook is only part of the story. In actuality, you do get some useful information sometimes out of knowing what language something is written in.

[cruffle_duffle]

Pretty sure Ruby on Rails sites were the same way.

[eichin]

Python certainly was too, back in the day. It feels like it's roughly a "first 10 years of the language" thing, maybe stretched another 5 if there's an underdog aspect (like being interpreted.)

[jpc0]

> ... and i'm memory-safe...

Go is memory safe..

[p_ing]

For an open source product, it's fun to say "written in X language". It also advertises the project to developers who may be willing to contribute.

If you put "product made with Go", I'm not going to contribute as I don't know Go, though that wouldn't prevent me from using it should it fit my needs. But if you wrote your project in .NET, I may certainly be willing to contribute.