[dilap]

Come now -- you don't have to re-implement containers for specific type in Go any more than you do in, say, Python -- you just have to cast when you remove objects from the container.

Not great, since you're losing compile-time safety for the type -- but no worse than every single line written in a "dynamic" language like Python, and no worse than pre-generics java, say, or obj-c.

[m0th87]

Python's dynamic typing saves you a lot over static typing without parametric polymorphism, as in Go's case.

As a concrete example, take sorting. In Go, you have to implement `sort.Interface` for each custom type you define. An example taken from the `sort` package:

    package main

    import (
        "fmt"
        "sort"
    )

    type Person struct {
        Name string
        Age  int
    }

    func (p Person) String() string {
        return fmt.Sprintf("%s: %d", p.Name, p.Age)
    }

    // ByAge implements sort.Interface for []Person based on
    // the Age field.
    type ByAge []Person

    func (a ByAge) Len() int           { return len(a) }
    func (a ByAge) Swap(i, j int)      { a[i], a[j] = a[j], a[i] }
    func (a ByAge) Less(i, j int) bool { return a[i].Age < a[j].Age }

    func main() {
        people := []Person{
            {"Bob", 31},
            {"John", 42},
            {"Michael", 17},
            {"Jenny", 26},
        }

        fmt.Println(people)
        sort.Sort(ByAge(people))
        fmt.Println(people)

    }

An equivalent in Python is quite a bit simpler:

    class Person(object):
        def __init__(self, name, age):
            self.name = name
            self.age = age

        def __repr__(self):
            return "%s: %s" % (self.name, self.age)

    people = [
        Person("Bob", 31),
        Person("John", 42),
        Person("Michael", 17),
        Person("Jenny", 26),
    ]

    print people
    people.sort(key=lambda person: person.name)
    print people

If it were just sorting, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. But there's a lot of nice abstractions missing from Go due to the lack of generics - e.g. higher-order functions like `map`.

[dilap]

Your examples aren't quite equivalent -- `people` in Go refers to a contiguous chunk in memory of size len(people) x sizeof(People). Thus, in the Sort() method, there needs to be something that binds the sort-algorithms need to swap elements to the specific code to swap that many bytes. Go does this, at the cost of some boilerplate, with the ByAge interface. (And other languages have more elegant ways to do this.)

But we are doing something you can't do at all in Python (barring specialized array modules or similar).

The equivalent of the Python code would be something like:

    package main

    import (
        "fmt"
        "sort"
    )

    type Person struct {
        Name string
        Age  int
    }

    func (p Person) String() string {
        return fmt.Sprintf("%s: %d", p.Name, p.Age)
    }

    func main() {
        people := []interface{}{
            Person{"Bob", 31},
            Person{"John", 42},
            Person{"Michael", 17},
            Person{"Jenny", 26},
        }

        fmt.Println(people)
        SortBy(people, func(a, b interface{}) bool {
            return a.(Person).Age < b.(Person).Age
        })
        fmt.Println(people)

    }

where we have a library function

    // SortBy can sort anything -- just give a comparison function.
    func SortBy(elts []interface{}, less func(a, b interface{}) bool) {
        sort.Sort(byFunc{elts, less})
    }

    type byFunc struct {
        elts []interface{}
        less func(a, b interface{}) bool
    }

    func (a byFunc) Len() int           { return len(a.elts) }
    func (a byFunc) Swap(i, j int)      { a.elts[i], a.elts[j] = a.elts[j], a.elts[i] }
    func (a byFunc) Less(i, j int) bool { return a.less(a.elts[i], a.elts[j]) }

This is exactly the same, expect for instead of saying "Give me .age" like we do in Python, we have to explicitly cast and say "I'm expecting a person, give me .Age".

[m0th87]

> Your examples aren't quite equivalent -- `people` in Go refers to a contiguous chunk in memory of size len(people) x sizeof(People).

How it's laid out in memory is tangential to the original critique - namely, that Go introduces complexity by not having parametric polymorphism.

> But we are doing something you can't do at all in Python (barring specialized array modules or similar).

Python not only allows this (I don't see why it wouldn't), it has built-in support for an equivalent for sorting via rich comparison methods [1]. The point is, though, that you don't have to.

As for the Go example, it's not equivalent because you're writing your own boilerplate code. And it's throwing static typing out the window, which doesn't seem very idiomatic.

1: https://wiki.python.org/moin/HowTo/Sorting#Odd_and_Ends

[dilap]

Hmm? Sorry, I wasn't trying to say Python doesn't let you define comparison functions, I was just reiterating that it doesn't let you sort an array of embedded objects, as opposed to pointers.

This is not a tangential difference. It's a real, important language decision, with benefits and consequences.

If you restrict yourself to arrays of interface{}, like python, then you can do exactly what python does, at the cost of losing compile-time type checking...exactly like python :)

I believe my example is equivalent to the python code; it doesn't contain any boilerplate (which is something you have to write over and over again), but rather a short library function, SortBy, which you would only have to write once.

(The normal Go sorting routines do contain boilerplate, since the Swap and Len methods are basically copy-paste jobs.)

That said, I agree using interface{} everywhere is not idiomatic Go, and certainly using things like map and fold in Go would be so awkward as not to not be worth it.

But doing something like writing a heap class that required casting when removing the object would be pretty reasonable, IMO.

You're not throwing static typing out the window, you're just losing it in that isolated case. It's more like...pushing static typing slightly out of the comfy spot on the couch. That's unfortunate!...but maybe not that bad -- after all, dynamic languages get along alright w/o static checks anywhere. :)

[mike_hearn]

But do those library functions actually exist or did you write them just now?

[dilap]

I wrote SortBy, but it was trivial, and you'd only have to do it once.

(The bigger issue is probably in Go you'd rather just have the boiler-plate than using []interface{}. But that's what you're essentially doing in a dynamic language like Python, and you can do it in Go, too, if you want.)

[pdpi]

> and no worse than pre-generics java

Personally, that was the turning point when Java became palatable. Which is a shame, because Go is all-around a pretty nice language. But writing real, production code, I've felt that I was needlessly repeating myself because of the lack of generics. Specifically, I really wish I could write generics over channels, so I can solve the problems of multiplexing/demultiplexing channels, throttling them, etc exactly once.

[dilap]

(It's worth pointing out that Go does offer lots that pre-generics java doesn't, in particular interfaces w/ structural typing.)

Agreed that not having generics is a real pain-point, though not as bad as I would've assumed before using the language.

For the channel stuff, you could always just make use "chan interface{}", have your generic chan library, and then cast when receiving from the channel.

Or you could use code generation to make specific versions of your library for various types, maybe using the upcoming go generate.

It's kind of interesting, because C++ templates, for example, essentially are code-generation, but just hidden away, and for that reason tend to get overused (IMO), resulting in crazy-long compile times.

If Go's solution to generics ends up being "generate the code explicitly", it would seem uniquely Go-ish -- inelegant, but might work well practice.

(I do sort of dream about some kind of generics in Go -- something like

  where X interface{}
  type LinkedList X struct {
    Obj X
    Next *LinkedList X
  }

and maybe...

  where X Lessable
  type Heap X []X

  func (h *Heap X) Push(x X) {
     ...
  }

or even just

   where X interface{}
   func PushHeap(h []X, x X, less func (a,b X) bool) {
      ...
   }

Ah, to dream :)

[dons]

> no worse than pre-generics java

exactly.

[pcwalton]

> obj-c

Objective-C is essentially dynamically typed.

[dilap]

Truth, but it does let you write down types for method arguments and instance variables, and the compiler will warn(!) you if you violate those -- if you're sane, you'll treat those warnings as errors.

So it's got a static typing feel, even if it is all just dynamic method lookup at runtime.

[imanaccount247]

>but no worse than every single line written in a "dynamic" language like Python

Yes, much worse.

>and no worse than pre-generics java

That is setting the bar so low it is underground. I don't want "no worse than a language that was born obsolete 20 years ago", I want "good".