why is everybody saying they are put off by Go? Did we pass the "trend" phase and now it's cool to say go sucks?
To be serious, in my circle of developer-friends, we feel that it tries to be TOO simple, and disagree with some of the decisions of how the language works (ex. seemingly endless `if err != nil { return nil, err }` type things)
How would your friends label "brainfuck" ? Too simple because it has very limited number of identifiers or Too hard because accomplishing anything is nightmare ?
I have written code in go/java/php/python/js and error handling has been a majority chunk of lines in most if not all cases(in other cases the errors are just not handled). The best ideal case flow is always easiest to build.
Alternatively, give Erlang or Elixir a shot: their primary mode of error handling is "don't, let it crash", which is possible due to the relatively unique process model.
Right. Like Perl 6.
> Very often, your error handling through a chain of operations will be to use a slightly different operator (say '?.' Instead of '.') and any errors will be automatically propagated to the end of that section of code where you can handle them all in one place.
P6 does this stuff particularly well.
It makes option types opt out. You have to explicitly specify the equivalents of Just or None, otherwise you're automatically dealing with an option type if you're dealing with a type.
Conditional constructs are designed to work well in this context.
One can use ML style pattern matching as those conditional constructs.
And other styles of matching.
Error exceptions are unified with error values, allowing codebase/author A to use one style, and B to use the other but pretend that A's code used B's style, and for C to use B's code in whichever style they prefer, seamlessly promoting/demoting between warnings, errors, and exceptions, including across language boundaries, as fits a use case.
And so on. Perl 6 learned from Perl 5 but it also learned from Haskell and many other languages.
> Alternatively, give Erlang or Elixir a shot
Note that the author of the OP is well known in the Erlang community.
Honest question, as I haven't had a chance to look into P6 as much as I would like. It looks pretty cool in a lot of ways, but I'm worried that all of the options available would create a confusing mess.
> Note that the author of the OP is well known in the Erlang community.
Yeah, my comment was directed at the parent who asked:
> I don't understand how some other language would not need to handle all the errors ?
And was intending to give a brief description of how other languages (possibly including P6, though I don't have the experience to say) handle errors differently from the languages they listed (go/java/php/python/js).
Aiui the Java compiler and language constructs generally don't know the difference.
The P6 Nothing isn't a null, it's a "type object" with memory- and type- safe behavior.
There's a tiny bit more about this at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Option_type#Perl_6
Erlang and it's VM doesn't need error handling (edit: like the ones you listed).
You use pattern match and you match for the outcome you want. So every other state is a let it crash and burn cause you don't care. Because of this mentality you don't have to be God and figure out all the possible fail state to Error check.
The VM enable this type of thinking because it's preemptive. And also there are supervisor trees to resent your program state. The error check is in form of monitor and robustness I guess but it's not in the usual form of other popular languages like the ones you listed.
This is why I prefer Erlang over Go in concurrency. The BEAM VM is good. Also no generics.
I can understand other people's complaints about the language though.
Granted, in my area, there are exactly none, but I don't live in the best location for the use of modern tool/language/technology stacks. If I were to move an hour or two north, I'd probably find many.
* Are you saying you don't use it because you consider it niche?
* Or are you saying you believe people don't use it because they believe it is niche?
* Or is your point that Go is niche because people consider it to be niche so it never gains critical mass?
In any case, it's not niche. Period. It's being used lots by both start ups and more established businesses alike. I'm not saying it has the kind of penetration that Java or Python does, but Go is still definitely "mainstream" (for want a better description) these days.
Go to me feels like Java did back in the 90s (in the sense that Java only offered some of the power of a language like Smalltalk while making you jump through hoops, and thus having to write more boiler plate).
no generics