>can't understand generics
Is this really true? We learned about generics in college so I assumed that everyone knew it (especially if they work at Google).
Is this really true? We learned about generics in college so I assumed that everyone knew it (especially if they work at Google).
Just because a language focuses on simplicity does not automatically make it bad. People use Go to solve complex issues, so it makes total sense none of that working memory should be occupied with understanding language features, even if they're as simple as generics.
A more extreme way to write Go is "space shuttle style" Code, as used in the Kubernetes Volume Controller, a radically different approach to "I want all my complex features that I can use to shoot myself in the foot".
You might be able to handle a firearm, but we have plenty of injuries and deaths through mishandled firearms every year, don't think you're exempt from that (or if you insist, at least do not talk down the need for safety).
https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/master/pkg/con...
More to the point, I am criticizing the reason for that. Designing a simple language is fine. I like simple languages a lot. Go was designed not because simple languages are good for some jobs but because Google decided their engineers aren't up to using more powerful tools.
I don't know Go. I've only written about 200 lines of it. I don't pretend to know whether or not it's any good. What I do know is that the reasoning behind it is bizarre to me.
I think you fundamentally misunderstand the reason for using Go. It's NOT about whether a developer is/isn't capable of understanding how to write code with a particular set of tools.
Instead, it's almost entirely about making that code simple to read and understand at a later date. Complex/'powerful' language tools complicate reading, which slows down later fixes and small modifications at best, and at worst leads to additional bugs in later iterations over the code. Thus, the core belief in Go's design is that 'powerful' languages are optimizing for entirely the wrong things.
From my perspective, this is a good change of focus. I want simple tools that I don't have to worry about. We have finite attention, so we should actively try to reduce cognitive load whenever possible, as it frees up attention for other things. For example, it's a much better use of my time to think about bayesian optimization than whether an array pointer is being safely handled... If I need to worry less about the latter, I have more time to think about the former.
Go's lack of generics is not due to ideological reasons. The designers are not particularly against them and are open to adding them given a good proposal. They always said that generics may well be added at some point.