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by frowaway001 4281 days ago
That's a false dichotomy.

The desire for a simple language doesn't mean you have to accept all the mistakes Go made. Go is just not a very good language. It would be completely irrelevant without the Google name behind it.
1 comments
shurcooL 4281 days ago
> Go is just not a very good language.

It certainly could be better (this is true of everything that's not perfect), but it is being improved (and it's open source, so you and I can help make it better). I already prefer it over many other languages.

> It would be completely irrelevant without the Google name behind it.

You mean... It would be irrelevant if Google and other people who work on it (being open source, many contributors aren't Google employees) did not make it what it is?

That's like saying... <any product> would be irrelevant if <those who made it> didn't make it as good as it is. It is a true statement, but how is it useful?

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frowaway001 4280 days ago
> but it is being improved

The things I care about can't be fixed, because they are fundamentally wrong in Go, they are not just some little oversight.

> I already prefer it over many other languages.

If I would start aiming low enough, I could also certainly find languages which are even worse than Go.

Honestly, I don't care. I prefer languages which do things better than X, not languages which are less worse than X.

> You mean... [...]

Eh no? I meant what I said. If the people who created Go wouldn't have been able to leverage the Google name (either by working at a company or by Google saying "don't use our brand for your toy projects") nobody would have cared.

But people said "OMG, Google invented online search!!! Then–by definition–they have to be language design experts, too!!!" and the tragedy unfolded.

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shurcooL 4280 days ago
Fair enough, it sounds like your needs are very different from what Go satisfies.

Just out of curiosity, what language(s) do you prefer to use over Go?

> Eh no? I meant what I said. If the people who created Go wouldn't have been able to leverage the Google name (either by working at a company or by Google saying "don't use our brand for your toy projects") nobody would have cared.

I have a very good counter-example for you. Google also made Dart. I have no interest in Dart and I don't think it's anywhere near as good as Go from what I can tell about it.

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frowaway001 4279 days ago
> counter-example

That's not a counter-example (necessary vs. sufficient).

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