This is specious logic. People are not being told to use Go grudgingly because it is mandatory. It isn't a required component of some entrenched industry dictum. The only possible reason someone would choose Go is because, somehow, it is advantageous to their process. And we've seen an enormous number of success stories with Go recently -- all people choosing to use it for no external reason, but somehow it benefits their project. This is in contrast to, for instance, JavaScript (which debatably has its own merits) where if you want to script on the web client, that's your choice, love it or leave it. In the Go domain, there are countless alternatives.

I find it hard to even express clearly why Go feels so...natural and productive. But it does. And one of those reasons is that the language is so simple and, well, crude, that you don't stop and sit on questions of approach. Somehow it works.

If we need to stick with vehicle analogies, it's more like someone is using a dumptruck to move massive piles of Earth, but complaining that the steering isn't as light as their car.

And FWIW, when people talk about the lack of generics causing them great pain, usually they aren't making a solution, but instead are toying with the language. Doing the typical "make a library that solves all problems" sort of thing. When I am using Go it is almost always for a specific, practical requirement (as duct tape between processes, to orchestrate some high performance C code, etc), and it just...isn't a problem. It really isn't. Unless you're making library code it just isn't this issue it is held to be.

Or because of the hype (and that they didn't know any better), which is quite common in the industry nowadays, unfortunately.

In a similar fashion, the Go designers were surprised that, what they thought was a C++ replacement, did not attract C++ programmers.

You're registering this objection on the basis of JS's privileged status in the browser; I'm invoking it because of The Fine Article's comparison with JS on the server, where it's adopted as voluntarily as any other language -- and where, yes, despite claims that event-driven/callback scattered code are worse than what Go offers, people are able to get things out the door anyway!

And that's true of Node, it's true of PHP, it's true of Java, it's true of most languages people have moved to Go from.

The claim that being able to ship in a language doesn't mean it's wart-free is a pretty solid one, and that's what we're talking about.

> I find it hard to even express clearly why Go feels so...natural and productive. But it does

Does it? I've been working in it for 8 months and... nope. Doesn't feel unusually productive. But I guess your subjective opinion that you can't explain should trump everyone else -- after all, we're using "specious logic!"

> And one of those reasons is that the language is so simple and, well, crude, that you don't stop and sit on questions of approach.

Ah, yes. It's like Java:

"I liked programming in Java mainly because I found it very relaxing. With a bad language, like say Fortran or csh, you struggle to do anything at all, and the language fights with you every step of the way forward. With a good language there is a different kind of struggle, to take advantage of the language's strengths, to get the maximum amount of functionality, and to achieve the clearest possible expression.

Java is neither a good nor a bad language. It is a mediocre language, and there is no struggle. In Haskell or even in Perl you are always worrying about whether you are doing something in the cleanest and the best way. In Java, you can forget about doing it in the cleanest or the best way, because that is impossible. Whatever you do, however hard you try, the code will come out mediocre, verbose, redundant, and bloated, and the only thing you can do is relax and keep turning the crank until the necessary amount of code has come out of the spout."

   http://blog.plover.com/prog/Java.html

> And FWIW, when people talk about the lack of generics causing them great pain, usually they aren't making a solution, but instead are toying with the language.

Really?

> it just...isn't a problem. It really isn't.

Oh. Sorry, then. I'll just realize that the unpleasantness I've encountered working with it really isn't there, and I'm not focusing on solutions.

You misunderstand my argument. If someone is begrudgingly complaining about JavaScript in the browser, well they have a legitimate gripe because they really have no option (beyond various compiles-to-javascript kludges). If those same people used nodejs, on the other hand, which many people do, they clearly found some compelling reason to do so. In the case of node it was that it made code very easily, and by default, asynchronous, instead of the classic .NET/PHP synchronous model. There was a benefit, and people gained from it.

Really?

Why are you using Go? Are you solving a real problem? Did you say "here is my itch, and I am using Go to scratch it?" I have never seen, in these discussions, people solving actual problems complaining about Go. Instead it's the code tourists who want to do some flippant, vaguely directed project and then add "Go Guru" on their resume to give credibility to their complaints.

Apparently. I have no idea why JavaScript's position in the browser is relevant at all to the point that being able to ship in a language isn't evidence that its featureset is ideal.

I do invite you to argue the point further, though. And please continue to ask questions like this again:

"Why are you using Go? Are you solving a real problem?"

Yes, please do imagine out loud that everyone who's critical of Go is just not building real software in it. Hell, follow your "argument" to its natural consequence: anyone not using your personal flavor of Blub is probably just farting around.

There is absolutely nothing drawing anyone who doesn't want to use Go into using it. There are zero external forces or dependencies that are making you build solutions in Go.

So when you come telling a tall tale of your peril with Go, it just stinks. Do you understand? You can, from the outside looking in, have criticisms of the language, but when you try to add authority to your claims by manufacturing great experience, it sounds absurd.

The relevance of JavaScript -- and this really doesn't seem that difficult, though I think you're trying to be difficult -- is that, to reiterate, people have to bear it regardless of their feelings about it, so there are a lot of people who despise JavaScript but ply their trade in it daily. There is zero parallel with Go, where there is absolutely no reason for anyone to ever make use of it if it doesn't offer some significant advantage to their project.