> I can't explain it, but I find the language infuriating. It somehow manages to be less expressive, more verbose and more straight up boring than all the other options.
I sort of get it. I think people fixate too much on the for loops and the `if err != nil` boilerplate, but there's definitely some validity with respect to "how to properly annotate errors" and emulating enums (in the Rust sense of the word) is pretty error prone and it still doesn't get you exhaustive pattern matching.
The stuff I like about Go:
* Single static, native binaries - being able to just send someone an executable is pretty nice, not needing to make sure people have the right libs and runtime installed is phenomenal.
* Great tooling. I love that the Go tool takes a list of dependencies. Unlike Gradle/CMake/etc I don't have to script my own build tool in a crumby/slow imperative DSL.
* Compilation speed. Go compiles really fast.
* Small language, easy learning curve. Any programmer can read just about any Go project with very little experience. Any Go programmer can jump into any other Go project and be productive immediately (no extensive configuration of IDE or build tools or anything like that). You can also write surprisingly abstract code without reaching for generics, but you will likely have to change your programming habits.
* Value types done right. Most other mainstream languages don't have them, and the ones that do very often implement them poorly (e.g., IIRC in C# you can define a type as a struct or a class and only structs can be value types, and classes are more idiomatic).
* Go eschews inheritance and prefers data-oriented programming over object-oriented programming (although OOP is poorly defined and some people think it means "anything with dot-method syntax").
* I'm just more productive in Go than any other language
Stuff I don't like about Go:
* No enums
* I wish there were fewer tradeoffs between abstraction and performance
* Needs a better system for annotating errors
* Doesn't run on embedded systems (although I've heard good things about TinyGo)
* Doesn't make me feel as clever (this is a nice property for professional software development, but for hobbies not so much)
On balance, I think Go is the better language, but I can also understand why it chafes people. Different strokes. :)
I am still fairly early in my career. I've worked mostly in Java, but my current job is a mix of Python for E2E testing, PHP and JS for application work. Go is my preferred language for tools.
My favorite language is by far Java with Go a close second. I dislike the others. The only thing I wish Go had is more functional support, but only in the style of Java's fluent API. I strongly dislike PHP, JS, and Python functional style and would almost prefer they not exist.
As a Go fanboy, this made me chuckle. :)
> I can't explain it, but I find the language infuriating. It somehow manages to be less expressive, more verbose and more straight up boring than all the other options.
I sort of get it. I think people fixate too much on the for loops and the `if err != nil` boilerplate, but there's definitely some validity with respect to "how to properly annotate errors" and emulating enums (in the Rust sense of the word) is pretty error prone and it still doesn't get you exhaustive pattern matching.
The stuff I like about Go:
* Single static, native binaries - being able to just send someone an executable is pretty nice, not needing to make sure people have the right libs and runtime installed is phenomenal.
* Great tooling. I love that the Go tool takes a list of dependencies. Unlike Gradle/CMake/etc I don't have to script my own build tool in a crumby/slow imperative DSL.
* Compilation speed. Go compiles really fast.
* Small language, easy learning curve. Any programmer can read just about any Go project with very little experience. Any Go programmer can jump into any other Go project and be productive immediately (no extensive configuration of IDE or build tools or anything like that). You can also write surprisingly abstract code without reaching for generics, but you will likely have to change your programming habits.
* Value types done right. Most other mainstream languages don't have them, and the ones that do very often implement them poorly (e.g., IIRC in C# you can define a type as a struct or a class and only structs can be value types, and classes are more idiomatic).
* Go eschews inheritance and prefers data-oriented programming over object-oriented programming (although OOP is poorly defined and some people think it means "anything with dot-method syntax").
* I'm just more productive in Go than any other language
Stuff I don't like about Go:
* No enums
* I wish there were fewer tradeoffs between abstraction and performance
* Needs a better system for annotating errors
* Doesn't run on embedded systems (although I've heard good things about TinyGo)
* Doesn't make me feel as clever (this is a nice property for professional software development, but for hobbies not so much)
On balance, I think Go is the better language, but I can also understand why it chafes people. Different strokes. :)