This is something I've been thinking about. Does anyone avoid Go the way that they avoid other google products? Why or why not? I've been liking it a lot lately as a systems programming language but am not sure how to parse the google side of the equation, as I try to avoid most google offerings
Well, I do, and I’ve written about it here before¹, but I usually get only downvotes for saying it.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17162582 and earlier https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8733705
I completely understand your justified fear of putting so much stake into a company owned language. It is completely reasonable.
But, since Go is only indirectly benefitting Google (as most of their non-ads products do) then I do not feel that using it is contributing anymore to Google's bottom-line or control than visiting an arbitrary website that uses Google Analytics, or using an Android phone, etc. will do.
But, an important discussion for the Go community (and any company-owned language) to have would be one around the hypothetical of Google shutting off it's contributions to the language.
A discussion would not solve the problem. The most Google (for example) could say is “we would never do that”, and then what? What makes this reliable. Google would instead have to change its image so as to not seem arbitrary and capricious in its bannings. Which they can’t.
It's rather irritating that a more generous interpretation of my comment was not considered here. Perhaps assume that my comment is not some attack on you or defense of corporate languages but rather an intellectual pursuit of a more nuanced scenario than just "good/bad" judgements?
I am sorry for misunderstanding, but it was not obvious to me. Perhaps because I would assume that such a discussion would be useless; if Google stops supporting Go, the language is dead, period.
Hell yes!
Also: It was dead for me the moment a *giant search engine company* decided naming something with 2 letters is a good idea.
That is either proof of being completely negligent with regards to wasting people's time in terms of making their work more difficult; or it is proof of bragging how good your search engine is.
Neither is a favorable thing to do. And actually probably both apply, people do probably miss a lot of good search results on Go no matter how smart their search engine is.
And you can't force everyone in every nook and cranny of the Internet to spell it "golang".
More out of principle than any kind of real reason. I don't want to play any part in google getting its tentacles into yet another part of my computer. I know it makes no real difference either way, but there's something about the idea of 'even the language the app's programmed in is owned by google' that just kinda makes me uncomfortable.