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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

>I mean, the author says C++ is a better language than Go, that Google is the ultimate reason for success, and that Go takes us back to C. That doesn't even make any sense.

It makes perfect sense. In fact that's what the Go developers themselves found out -- that C++ programmers, who they thought they would be attracted to Go, passed it over, and instead Go gained dynamic language converts.

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If they had been more open minded regarding generic programming they would had gotten more from us.

Agreed. Would make Go much more suited to the kind of stuff I do -- although it still has several drawbacks as a language (warts and idiosyncratic decisions that are not really based on any utility), it hits a good spot of convenience and popularity (which means ecosystem growth) for certain tasks.

Personally, I'm actually a long time C++ programmer (and loving it, at the time!), who abandoned it and run away full steam with Go (loving it even more). So, always when I hear the above claim, I wonder: am I, like, "the only one"? A curious specimen? Or is there more of us, just maybe we don't speak up?

>I wonder: am I, like, "the only one"? A curious specimen

Considering that Go doesn't even do well (and has horrible library support) for most of the stuff C++ is used for (GUI apps, 3D, AAA games, systems programming, high performance scientific calculations, etc), probably yes.

Now, if you did network servers with C++, probably Go is a better/easier/smaller surface fit.

I worked as a C++ developer for three years and switched to Go development this year. I used to love making a "generic" solution to a given problem using templates in C++. Now I find myself without even a decent data structure in the Go standard library. Have you seen the way priority queues are implemented? Just a terrible design choice.

Author said it takes us back to C and you are saying it makes perfect sense that it gained dynamic language converts? By your argument, it is passed over by C programmers too making the original statement also not make sense when framed that way. Or maybe you meant only the first part made perfect sense?

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