Google Go started in 1972 | Hacker News Reader

Google Go started in 1972

code.google.com

113 pointsvinutheraj38 comments

The whole point of those early commits is that it's a joke! Just go read them. They are basically laying out the simple Hello, World! program and showing its evolution over time.

1972: Hello, World! is written in B 1974: Hello, World! is re-written for the new C language 1988: Hello, World! is written in ANSI C (two commits, go read them to see the diff) 2008: Go

Unless the dispute resolution is on good tracks to be solved, I don't find it funny because Google has the weight to squash anyone on its way, even unintentionally.

Go was a good name for a language invented at google but it is unfortunately not available. The name 'lango' suggested in a comment was, in my opinion, a brilliant alternative name proposal. And the most funny alternative name proposal was 'go2'.

I don't think this relates to the "Go" vs "Go!" situation, I think it's just meant to represent the evolution of Google Go as a language.

That's interesting, I thought it was a direct (joke) response to the "Go" vs "Go!" situation. The "Go!" author stated that his language came first and then we find these conveniently aged commits the following day.

Either way, it's nice to see Google not taking itself too seriously.

I could be completely wrong of course, and the timing is convenient. I guess it depends on when these changes were pushed in, but then it's hard to tell when a possibly fake timestamp was made...

Possibly fake?

Yeah, that really didn't need to be added...

Finding a commit on one day doesn't mean the commit happened on that day.

The whole kerfuffle about the name being taken and everyone firing off their suggestions for a new one is the greatest example of bikeshedding I have ever seen.

"kerfluffle"

Awesome. If "Issue9" doesn't take off, I suggest we call it "Kerfluffle". And if that doesn't fly, how about "BikeShed"? :)

I know Google likes long betas, but this is ridiculous.

That's hilarious. I don't quite get the dates for ANSI C, though. The draft date looks correct, but Wikipedia has it being ratified in 1989.

Incidentally, here's a great thread that just shows the more things change the more they stay the same (from 1988): http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/browse_thread/thr...

Quotes:

"This process could go on forever, but there is a strong desire to adopt a "good enough" standard in a timely fashion rather than working toward a "perfect" standard that is too late to matter. Many of us feel that the current draft is "good enough""

"C is rapidly catching up with Pascal as the second most well known language but it has a long way to go before it becomes as well know (and perhaps as useful)as BASIC"

Google Go started in 1972 in the same sense as Clojure started in 1960.

Meta comment: What is with all the smiley faces in these comments? 6 in 24 comments. Either people here get weirdly giddy over Google or the userbase is now mostly in their teens.

There was a discussion on using emoticons even in serious communication, yesterday I think.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=933585

Excuse my brash language, but a circle jerk is hardly serious communication, is it?

A good portion of communication in most animals is done visually. These visual cues do not transfer very well to text (okay, they don't transfer at all). The emoticon can be used to help. For instance:

     You're an idiot.

Does not mean the same thing as:

     You're an idiot :)

This is why emoticons are an important part of comments. They make them flow more like a conversation.

http://code.google.com/p/go/source/detail?r=4e9a5b0955321f15...

Can someone explain to me what I'm looking at? I don't get what this is, or it's significance? It is a joke of some kind?

Presumably a lighthearted response to the Go! creator.

Except that the hg repo has been up for longer than the whole fuss about Go!

99.9% of it coming after 2008.

Actually, this is a good idea. I'm going to go name-squat repositories on every other hard-to-search programming language name I can think of.

Where did the early commits come from? What revision control systems existed back in 1972?

I would venture to say none. UNIX was completed in 1969, and C itself didn't exist until 1972.

SCCS (Source Code Control System) was developed at Bell Labs in 1972.

Those are obviously fake commits! Those were added by the Go language team as a joke. We must applaud their sense of humour :)

Looks like Go is forked from B?.

More of a successor than a fork, since Ken Thompson is the creator of B and is also on the Go team. :)

hahaha, B -> C -> ANSI C -> GO Spec :)

Lets hope this shuts up all the annoying people that got nothing better to do than to whine about a similar name having been used by another language, now it is clear who was first ;)

Conspiracy Theory: You have to wonder if maybe they just added those entries so they could claim the name. ;)

Edit: Okay I know it is joke, it just highlights how people trust info on the internet and dates can be made to lie very easily.

Yeah, and Mozilla should re-rename Firefox to Firebird.

Don't you mean Phoenix?

Was it called 'go' back then? Or did they just search their archived servers to find anything dated so long ago no one could argue with them?

Hint: Look at the name that checked in the 1972, 1974, and 1988 entries.

And the email addresses, "Brian Kernighan <research!bwk>". Remembering to use bang paths shows how much thought was put into this prank, very cool.

I hope you also noticed the R=ken(Ken Thompson) and R=dmr(Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie) in the commit log messages :)

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