> Go, with its lack of complicated mechanics targets the middle of the bell curve.
No, it targets the less experienced - interns, as the language creators said.
No, it targets the less experienced - interns, as the language creators said.
Go is a safe programming language, but it is not simple. Go has very rigid rules.
I don't see any difference in complexity between programming in C and programming in Golang. Programming in Golang may even be harder than C.
If you format your code wrong, Golang screams at you.
If you import a package and never use it, Golang screams at you.
If you redefine a defined variable, Golang screams at you.
If you don't use a variable you defined, Golang screams at you.
C is much more forgiving :).
Golang makes dynamic memory management safe, but in nowhere easy. You still use the good old void* via an empty interface. For an intern, garbage collection doesn't matter, an intern is intelligent enough not to leak so much memory so that it will get noticed :).
I sometimes think Golang resembles the early versions of Java. Creating a safer C-like language, with great ideals. With Java the complexity kicked in after a while. Golang still resists the urge to please everyone.
"They’re typically, fairly young, fresh out of school, probably learned Java, maybe learned C or C++, probably learned Python. They’re not capable of understanding a brilliant language but we want to use them to build good software. So, the language that we give them has to be easy for them to understand and easy to adopt." - Rob Pike
I think this is confusing being permissible with difficulty. Because C is permissible, it makes writing correct code in it hard. The fact that the Go compiler has a (relatively) simple type system and is able to point out mistakes like the ones you mentioned makes it much easier to write correct code.
I'd also just like to point out most of the things you list about Go won't cause a crash or undefined behaviour if you were able to leave them in anyway.
As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, interface{} isn't the same as void. void will let you reference anything as a type unsafely leading to undefined behaviour. interface{} carries type information, and while it does cause crashes, it doesn't lead to undefined behaviour.
Also, how is memory management in C easier? Leaking memory is the least of your worries, you could double free, null ptr access, invalid free, have dangling ptrs, etc. Lots of these things are taken care of by Go's GC so you don't have to worry about it.
EDIT:
Found it, https://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article
"It must be familiar, roughly C-like. Programmers working at Google are early in their careers and are most familiar with procedural languages, particularly from the C family. The need to get programmers productive quickly in a new language means that the language cannot be too radical."