[rdtsc]

I think trade-offs have been made already. If they bring in "generics" they would have to back-pedal and now many in the community would have to in a way refute their previous excuses of why they didn't need generics. ("But I have been arguing on public forums for the last 2 years that generics are not useful, what do you mean we'll now implement generics....")

There is also a chance that it will slow down compilation and or runtime. Java, C++ and other code compiles slower. Is it because those languages are stupid and slow and made by idiots? Not necessarily, it is because they have more features. Many added later (with added complexity of keeping backwards compatibility). The fear I think, is if Go gains those new features, its compilation and/or execution speed or claims of simplicity will not hold any more.

[enneff]

You have it all backwards. We didn't build Go in order to have arguments on a mailing list. And I don't think the people saying "I don't need generics," are lying. I think they actually believe what they say, and I'm sure if we did introduce generics today many of them would say "I think this is a mistake."

Yes, the tradeoffs have been made. The language has been designed. It is very unlikely that Go 1.x will see generics.

Yes, any new language feature may slow down the compilers and/or runtime. Go values compilation and execution speed highly very highly. To include any new language feature we would assess whether it is worth the various costs; that much is obvious.

But there are technical reasons why C++ and Java could never compile as fast as Go, and they have nothing to do with generics. Go's dependency model is the main reason it can build fast.

And simplicity is a core tenet of the language design. To sacrifice that would be to admit defeat entirely. We could have just been using C++ all along.

[rdtsc]

> And simplicity is a core tenet of the language design. To sacrifice that would be to admit defeat entirely. We could have just been using C++ all along.

Well that was my point it. Turning Go into something like Java or C++ will make it not Go any more.

> We didn't build Go in order to have arguments on a mailing list.

Not sure many popular languages were built for that. But arguments on mailing lists is what you get. Quite often the smarter people are, the better they are able to veil things like disappointments, personal dislikes, and others in technical arguments. I have seen it in private meetings and public discussion forums. The inertia of defending something vigorously and then having to back-pedals is unpleasant.

[frou_dh]

Simple is the biggest weasel word in programming.

In practice it's pretty much a measure of the temperature of bear porridge that a given person currently finds just right.

[pjmlp]

C++ currently compiles slowly due to lack of modules.

Eiffel, Ada, D, Modula-3, Active Oberon, FreePascal, Delphi... enjoy fast native code compilers and do have generics.