[estebanrules]

I'm very interested in learning either Go or Rust. Of course I could learn both, but when I learn a new language (or anything really), I like to really immerse myself and focus.

I'm leaning towards Go but Rust is very interesting.

[wyager]

Having spent a fair amount of time with both, I have to say that I would suggest Rust. Go is not a well-designed language. The type system is mediocre, generic support is bad (you have to use interface{}, which is like casting to Object in Java or passing structs/objects around as void*s in C/C++), the language relies heavily on non-extensible built-in constructs like range and make(), etc. I use Go a lot, and I like it for building web services, but I really don't see the advantage for anything else.

Rust, on the other hand, takes a lot of cues from Haskell/ML and is actually a very well designed language with lots of cool features like a hindley-milner based type system with strong generic support, pattern matching, strong support for immutable and functional programming styles, etc.

[icedog]

Web services aren't the only things that run on servers. And nobody is forcing you to use just one tool for all your jobs.

[wyager]

>Web services aren't the only things that run on servers.

Of course not, but web services are the only thing that I think Go is much good for.

>And nobody is forcing you to use just one tool for all your jobs.

Does that mean I'm not allowed to talk about which tools I think are good for what?

[steveklabnik]

Go is like a better Ruby or Python. Rust is like a better C++. Go is ready for production today. Rust will have 1.0 this year, and only has 3 production deployments so far.

Hope that helps.

[ahuth]

I'm seeing a lot of "No you're wrong!" responses to this comment. I think they're missing the point.

Most of the projects I come across for Go are for things that traditionally have been in Ruby/Python's camp. Examples of these are web infrastructure and command-line stuff.

Rust, on the other hand, seems like its being used more for things that have been done in C++. i.e. rendering engines and operating systems.

The comment author never stated that Go is better than Ruby/Python. The author points out that a lot of Ruby/Python people have switching over to Go... seemingly more than to Rust.

This isn't a statement for or against either projects worth.

[mackwic]

I don't even understand on which base you are comparing Go with Ruby or Python (ok, they are programming languages). Care to explain ?

In my point of view, Go is system oriented, concurrency builtin, compiled, lots-of-braces, few syntax features. It's like the opposite of Python and Ruby.

I would compare Go with Vala, Java and C#.

[steveklabnik]

> It's like the opposite of Python and Ruby.

Exactly. Many people are running into issues with Ruby and Python that Go solves. Tons of Ruby and Python programmers are flocking to Go.

It's not better because it's the same, it's better because it's different.

[threeseed]

> Tons of Ruby and Python programmers are flocking to Go.

No they aren't. If they were you would be seeing "tons" of job ads or blog posts. I've seen hardly any.

[steveklabnik]

We must operate in disjoint social circles.

[threeseed]

On Australia's largest job site: 331 Ruby, 338 Python and 0 Golang jobs.

[pjmlp]

> Go is like a better Ruby or Python.

Not really as it lacks the expressive power of the said languages.

And if one is looking for execution speed there are alternatives like Cython, PyPy, JRuby and RubyMotion.

For the OP question, if he values a mordern 21st century language, Rust is the way to go, even at pre 1.0.

[steveklabnik]

Go wins over Ruby and Python for many people due to it's speed, tooling, and trivial deployment. A language is more than just expressive power.

I personally don't find Go to be that interesting, but the number of Ruby and Python people who are making re move and are happy with it indicates that I'm an oddball.

[pjmlp]

What I think is that many moving to Go, do so without trying out other runtimes/compilers available for the said languages.

[threeseed]

> Go is like a better Ruby or Python.

I don't think so. Go has its own set of pros/cons just like every other platform. You could equally argue that the huge array of libraries for Ruby and Python would make it "better". And ActiveRecord or Rails alone are major advantages of the Ruby platform.

Personally I see Go being more like Java 1.0. Simple and elegant.

[steveklabnik]

I have a Ruby tattooed on my body, we're in agreement. But we're increasingly becoming a minority opinion. Go is certainly eating away at Ruby and Python's mindshare.

[djur]

I've only seen more people interested in Ruby over the last few years, and only token interest in Go. I hear a lot more interest in Elixir/Erlang, Rust, Clojure, and Haskell from Rubyists around here than I do for Go.

[rdtsc]

How is Go a better Python?

[e12e]

I think it's more correct to say that Go is a better C (or perhaps: Pascal) than Python (or Ruby).

A lot of the rewrites I've seen done in Go, could probably have been done in C. The thing is, for lots of problems, Go is a better C than C. You can bolt on lots of safety features on top of C, and I think you could probably be very productive and safe in C if you forgot a lot of the dangerous features that C turns "on by default". It is for example possible to use Pascal strings in C.

I don't think the comparison with Vala (or Nimrod) is too far off -- but the Go team has lots of experience with language and system design -- and I think that really helps Go be a productive tool.

[steveklabnik]

Please see the other three replies I've already typed in this thread.

[rdtsc]

The fact that you are getting so many "erhm, I don't think so" probably indicates that it wasn't a good comment that promotes discussion.

"Clearly X is better than Y" don't do anything except incite flame wars. You can remedy the situation by explaining and showing in what areas it is better or explain what your experience of seeing the benefits are. Just leaving at "X is better than Y obviously..." that usually doesn't end well.

That is why I asked you why it was better, even thought you already answered it 3 times, because it was another chance to explain why it was better.

[coldtea]

>The fact that you are getting so many "erhm, I don't think so" probably indicates that it wasn't a good comment that promotes discussion.

Well, that's because they haven't been following the discussion, on HN and on startup circles, going on for a while.

For one, Go creators' themselves said they expected Go to attract more C++/Java people, but instead they got more Python/Ruby people. And that's like 2 years ago.

For the past year or so, there have been numerous posts about how this or that project/startup switched from Ruby/Python to Go. Last 2 weeks alone there have been around 5 such posts on the front page of Hacker News (Digital Ocean being the latest).

Go is getting increasingly used by people that were doing infastructure/backend work in Python/Ruby etc, e.g people using stuff like Twisted and Tornado, JSON services, etc.

>That is why I asked you why it was better, even thought you already answered it 3 times, because it was another chance to explain why it was better.

Well, I guess he pre-supposed people are already familiar with all the "we rewrote our system in Go and we now have X times better performance, no more gimmicks to get async, etc".

[steveklabnik]

> Go creators' themselves said they expected Go to attract more C++/Java people, but instead they got more Python/Ruby people.

June 25, 2012: http://commandcenter.blogspot.com.br/2012/06/less-is-exponen...

[steveklabnik]

I'm also getting lots of upvotes, too.

Really, it's all anecdata. To be clear, when I say "better," (not "clearly better" as you quoted) I mean "I see lots of people re-writing their Ruby/Python code in Go, and they're very happy with the results." Here's the most recent story I remember: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7628472

[logicchains]

If you already know C, it would only take a week or two to learn Go, so it would be quite possible to do both.