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Comment by orangethirty | Hacker News Reader

I'm rewriting Nuuton with Go. Before, I was using a combination of Python (with Django), and Lisp (for the back end processing). After playing around with Go for a couple of hours, I decided to do a little test. Went ahead and wrote a simple API that mimicked how Nuuton worked. It turned out to be so simple and fun to build that I decided to trash all of the old code base and rewrite it in Go. The performance is great (it runs circles around the Python/Django code (expected)), but what I like is the syntax, and how easy it is to work with it. In my mind, its the right mix of C and Python. Its just an awesome language to work with.

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I tried to use it but felt it was so slow to write your ideas that programming got boring (no advanced loops/generators, no list comprehensions, lambda functions aren't used very much IIRC). I'd probably stick with Python unless performance matters.

But OTOH it really "just works" out of the box.

It's a bit strange to complain about lack of use for "lambda functions" in a language where there's a keyword that generally accepts a function reference, most often a function literal? (This keyword coincidentally is the language name lower-cased.)

WRT generators: have you tried using channels? "The tour of Go" seems to instill you with the idea that you should not iterate over lists and use channels instead.

I also miss list comprehensions and, for that matter, type-parametrized functions.

OTOH, static duck typing is brilliant: best of both worlds.

Maybe I used the wrong terms; what I mean't was that I didn't see stuff like "filter(lambda x:x>=50, s)"

You might find this interesting: http://blog.burntsushi.net/type-parametric-functions-golang

This is indeed interesting, and this is why I'm missing something like func <A, B> Map(f func(A) B, input []A) []B that would statically check the A and B types at a call site.

BTW it looks like less work at compile time than the elaborate run-time solution that you linked to. It probably will not even require generation of specialized versions for primitive types.

It is "boring" -- absolutely. It is almost insanely so at times (even when solving complex problems). The number of times you get to feel insanely clever is very low.

But, that output / work product is -- and a huge part of Go's value is around the EDGES of a system (build, standard formatting, deploys, etc)

Well channels can get pretty exciting at times, but they are so easy to work with I don't spend much time on them.

True, and they allow unique and sometimes amazing ways to solve problems.

If you're missing lambdas based on Python's neutered implementation, you're not really missing anything with go.

What is your Nuuton project about ?

A search engine. From what I know, its the only engine using Go (aside from Google.) Blekko uses Perl, DDG uses python (I think), Bing uses unicorn blood, and all the smallr ones use Jva and/or C++.

You needn't have said "aside from Google": it seems that Google doesn't use Go for the search engine.

They do use it on some parts of the system. But its not a pure Go implementation like Nuuton. (:

It's mostly C++ for indexing and lookup, but "Search" is a big topic, and there are Go, Java, and Python parts in the many systems that make Google's web search work. Go is growing in popularity within Google.

Hm, it seems DDG uses Perl actually[1].

[1]http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216392-a...

I must say I like the name. What differentiates your search engine from the others?

I am building it for us. Rather than to hype it up and cash in. It is truly a search engine aimed at hackers. In terms of features, you will learn as it goes through the BETA. Keep posted at the blog nuuton.com/blog.

Awesome idea, because as we all know the choice of implementation language is absolutely crucial to the success of a startup.

How much fun the founders have is directly related to the chance of the startup's success, and a person's ability to learn is directly related to their personal success.

Sarcasm doesn't belong on HN.

Well, I was having fun with Python and Lisp. But it was a bit painful between all of the different parts. Plus on the front end, I was writing mostly Django. Which has its own set of conventions. I like to keep things simple. And that made me move to Go. Its simple.

Exactly. You switched to Go because it rewarded you. Here you made an improvement that you liked, and you grew happier. Now, when you sit down to write, you'll be more likely to think "Wow, here I get to learn another piece of the Go ecosystem," which will probably drive you to continue working on your startup.

Yes, spot on. I already have all of the business side stuff done, and will now focus on the fun part. Its refreshing to be able to sit down and just code. I'm putting up a simple blog at nuuton.com/blog. I'll blog about my experience coding it. Keep posted.

I think a huge part of go's success is the go command. For those of us coming from scripting language having the whole "configure/make/install" problem solved (and solved well) by the core language greatly lowers the barrier to entry.

Go acts like a scripting language, but runs like a compiled one. That's why I love it. The right mix of C and Python.

That trait is shared by lots of languages though. Racket and some other lisps do exactly that. So does PyPy.

The difference is it's a true compilation. Most lisps will save like a data image that still needs to launch the runtime.

So your point is that founder happiness is directly related to the startup's chance of success, which seems questionable, but possibly true. Then you define happiness as things that are good choices for the business. Of course doing things that are good for the business are good for the business. This is a bit of a circular definition.

That said, choice of programming language is important. It's possible to be 10x to 100x more productive in one language (at least to start with), if it has libraries (included in the standard lib or community) that do most of the hard work for you. It's very easy to get started with a Python project, if your work at all uses Numpy/Scipy/ETC. The choice of programing language also is a big factor in what engineers you can hire in the future.

I thought about COBOL, but then I realized I did not work at a bank.

If the stories are to be believed, the only reason we're having this conversation on this particular message board is because they actually do at times.

http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html

It's definitely important. Not only can the language contribute to better development (however you want to define "better"), Go, in particular is attractive to engineers you might really want to hire.

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