[Techtalk] [x-post] Go

[Wim De Smet]

(I'm restricting this post to techtalk, feel free to repost)

On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 8:34 AM, vid <vid at svaksha.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Google's new beta project: Go, http://golang.org/

I just went through a couple of blog posts by Mark Chu-Carroll  where
he goes in-depth on some of the nicer features:
http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2009/11/googles_new_language_go.php
http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2009/11/the_go_i_forgot_concurrency_an.php

I thought it was a very interesting read. I mostly agree with him.
Especially not implementing generics seems like a mistake to me.
They'll just end up implementing it anyway, several versions down the
line.

The one thing I _really_ like is their version of duck typing. You
actually declare your interfaces as a set of functions, any type that
implements those functions implements the interface. You however don't
have to state what interfaces a certain type implements, it works
retroactively. Moreover, you have real type safety, as the compiler
can check whether the types you're using really implement those
functions. So it's the best of both worlds really, where you have
static typing but can code much more dynamically.

I'm not a big fan of the ':=' style for assignment, but it definitely
looks like a solid language. Unfortunately coming from a java world
I'm much more likely to write something in Scala than Go. I definitely
see this replacing C/C++ for many people though. Not to start a
flamewar but I think there's two languages whose time has come.

regards,
Wim