Get off my lawn!

Just like the whole "W7 is so great coz Vista was so crap" way of viewing the world, go's compilation only looks fast because our current compilers are so awfully slow vs what we had over 20 years ago.

Anyone alive that remember the latter half of the 1980s? Borland Turbo Pascal?

The last time I tried Turbo Pascal was around 1994 on a 100MHz 486 with MSDOS 6.x. It compiled a few k lines of code so fast that the "compiling" message was gone before the video refresh had managed to paint it. I thought the compile button was broken.

I wonder how fast it would compile on a modern machine.

[ Yup, running a turbo pascal program is another matter. The speed calibration loop can't handle CPUs faster than 200MHz].

<---There being no curmudgeon icon, the pedantic bastard will have to do.

Google joins the RUXPerienced Party in Full Sovieted Swing

I just love this classic Goline ..... "Now we come to processes and communication—concurrent programming. It's a big subject so to be brief we assume some familiarity with the topic." ..... which of course allows for all manner of customized code injection from an assumed base knowledge which is most unlikely to be exactly the same in every case, thus will it be different in every case and therefore is a chaos parameter programmed in to projects in an embedded sleeper mode ....... which can be very convenient for personal invocation for project program control at a later date.

It is not a flaw or vulnerability though, for it is just the way things are. ......... with such a flaw and vulnerability always being available for exploitation and GCC Capture of Global Command and Control Operands. It is an Abiding Facility and Utility Vehicle ......... Virtual Trojan ....... Stealthy AIdDragon in PerlyGatesPython ASPirant Networks InterNetworking JApplications for GoDevices.

but cathedral doors still partly closed...

uber-geek publication The Washington Post helpfully writes:

----

To get things started the right way, here's Go's rendition of Hello World!:

05 package main07 import fmt "fmt"//Package implementing formatted I/O.09 func main() { 10 fmt.Printf("Hello, world; or ???????? ?????; or ????? ??n"); 11 }

---

Must get right on to learning that one....

Cool?

It sounds really cool. But there's just something about Google that I don't trust.

I can imagine it analysing your code and sending results back to the chocolate factory, or even worse, advertisements in a side bar!

(Only slightly tongue in cheek).

And I don't really know what their issue is with more contemporay languages. They single out Java in the article, but it is mature, tried, and tested with billions of lines of code out in the wild. It's not to be sniffed at. Ditto .Net.

They seem to have an issue with VM/VP based architectures, but to my mind, they do the job at hand just fine. Perhaps a bit slow to compile, but heck, how else would you get a toilet/fag/flirt break?

"Less time reading blogs...?"

Are they mad..?

Sounds teh awesome !

Or rather, it sounds a bit like C#, only without the huge number of libraries and a nice IDE. Presumably there will be an IDE ? I hear that vi is good.

And who really cares about compile times anyway (cue post from someone that does...)

Java, C++ and C# cover everything for me and there's always Coral 66 for those special occasions.

@ForthIsNotDead

They singled out Java quite rightly - Java *is* a four letter word - it is and always was an abomination of a language.

It was called Java because words like "Dynamic" and "Loose Typing" were deemed to complex for them to grasp - these are the same people that thought C++ was "elegant".

Just what we need

Another programming language, as we have so few to choose from already.

Cumbersome type system?

You mean all those annoying compile-time checks and optimisations that stop your code blowing up and/or running like a dog at mission-critical run-time? Who needs them? Programmer time and the freedom to throw stuff together with no discernable structure is so much more important!

it's just a multithreaded interpreter

First analysis, from the Language Design FAQ, http://golang.org/doc/go_lang_faq.html

* "goroutines" are just a fancy, deceptive name for the idea of having a multithreaded interpreter/VM. They are not coroutines, despite the similarity of the names.

* The first specious argument occurs very close to the top of the FAQ, concerning a misplaced * in a C-style declaration.

* The issues surrounding order of execution of ++ and -- are not messy. The ++ in 'f(i++)' happens at a well-defined time, *before* the call to f(). and 'p[i] = q[i++]' is defined to be undefined.

* I get a creepy-crawly feeling when I read the section on the lack of type inheritance, with the thought of hundreds or thousands of coincidental interface associations, and the entertaining set of bugs that will arise from that.

Well, just my opinion, anyway.

Great! A cross between Javascript and C++!

It looks suspiciously close to the long-rumoured C++ update C++0x, which adds stuff like type inference. It's hard to tell for sure from the tutorial, but the core language looks ugly and no more powerful than C++. Maybe it has nice stuff for concurrent processing, but surely that could be done as an extension to an existing language rather than making up your own ridiculousness. But as long as they don't force anyone to use it, who cares?

Syntax more like VisualBasic than C++ or Python

"func sum(a[] int) int { // returns an int" is more like "function sum (a[] as integer) as integer" than "int sum (int[] a)".. but that's just academic... the key question is it just academic.

has google built its applications in “go”; can it integrate with Python native interface (if so, why is there not a compiler option); can it integrate with Java (or do we still need JNI);why is there no p-code layer for portability; what’s the status of the ISO standardisation..

..otherwise.. can I interest you all in a new multi-paradigm cache oriented language I’ve though of called “Cashe”.. you’ll find out later why it’s called “Cashe” ;-)

How the heck?

How the heck am I the first comment at time of posting to make a half-formed lame-arse gag about GOTO's being deprecated?

What rebellion?

FTA:

""There is a growing rebellion against cumbersome type systems"

No there isn't. At least not amongst any programmers I know. Perhaps the fluffy web crowd who graduated into programming PHP or python via HTML can't handle static typing or other "low level" nasties but for those of us who value efficient well written code and have at least half a clue of what we're doing then static typing is a bloody godsend. We heard similar sorts of whining a generation ago from VB coders trying to graduate to C++. Gimme a frigging break.

can't help thinking

those rebelling against the strongly type languages - are those who don't want to be bothered with mundane details

@Sandtreader

Very true

Toy language

OK, so it does have a type system of sorts. However:

- No exceptions

- No generics / templates

- Any two things implementing the same interface(s) (by method names) are type-equivalent

- Destruction only by GC - hence no RAII, except manually with "defer"

- Explicit this!! - we're back in hacking up OO in C here.

- GC is currently batch mark/sweep (incremental is SMOP, RSN)

- No overloading

- ++ -- are statements only

- strings are immutable

- Surface syntax is sufficiently similar but different to C/C++ that switching between them will be a nightmare - e.g. semis are separators, if/for have no () but require {}, precedence of << is different;

- They insist on K&R bracing (spit ;-)

Nice things:

- Unified definition/declaration (no header files)

- Multiple return values

- Non-constant, non integer case

- labelled break/continue

- anonymous functions / lambda / closures

- inferred types

- tidied up iterators (range)

... Some (but not all) of which we get in C++0x. Now C++0x with unified definition/declaration, that would be worth making a song and dance about (but it's probably impossible).

But does it come with a paradigm shift?

Nothing to see here, moving on.

Because we really need a new useless-yet-hideous programming language.

Python is soooooo 2005, and it just wasn't useless enough.

This new programming language will be very popular and hotly debated on three mailing lists, for about a year, and then they'll move on to the next paradigm shift.

No one worries about compile times?

If my system compile times weren't 1hour and 20 minutes, when would I get time to read The Register?

I remember Turbo Pascal - tiny footprint and fast - where has it all gone wrong since?

Yes - I do still optimise in assembler!

SAPPEUR is the Alternative

Those of you who know and like PASCAL (or Ada) and C++, there is something new from Germany. It is called SAPPEUR.

Strong typing, single inheritance, interfaces, stack allocation, destructors, array bounds checking, no VM. Fast and thin on memory. Integrates nicely with C++, as you can intersperse C++ wherever it is needed.

Novel is the support for multicore/multiprocessor machines in the type system.

Try for your own and have a look at it on http://www.sappeur.eu.

There is a demo at

http://www.sappeur.eu/scs/SAPPEUR_richtig/SAPPEUR_richtig.html

@Just what we need

LEARN GO IN 21 DAYS

PROFESSIONAL GO

GO FOR DUMMIES

LEARN GO IN 24 HOURS

SECRETS OF THE GO MASTER PROGRAMMERS

THINKING IN GO

KILLER GO

LEARN GO IN 7 DAYS

ADVANCED GO

GO IN A NUTSHELL

GO HOW TO PROGRAM

GO GO GOOGLE GADGET INTEGRATOR!*

Yes, I am shouting. I'm also very glad I don't teach CS1 anymore so I won't have to hear students saying "but C++/Java/C#/C/Pascal/Whatever is dead, why don't you teach us Go?"

*Actually this last one sounds cool.

Just STOP

What we absolutely don't need is another syntax to remember for everyday things like variable declarations, for loops, and if statements. Java, C++, C# and Objective-C all manage it, and what's the point of a fast compiler if you need three goes to get your brackets and semicolons in the right place? Python succeeds because you can get going with virtually zero knowledge of its syntax.

As a spiritual successor to Turbo Pascal, TCC (Tiny C Compiler) is worth a look, BTW.

wei-ch'i

Have they been practicing wei-ch'i too much at the chocolate factory?