Would you say C# AOT could have been competitive in startup time and overall performance, and the decision came down to the other factors you've noted? I think everyone would have expected C# AOT to be the default choice so it might be nice to see some more concrete examples of where Go proved itself more suitable for your use-case.
C# AOT is quite strong and would be a great choice in a lot of contexts.
Go was just very, very strong on port-friendliness when coming from the TS codebase in particular. If you pull up both codebases side-by-side, it's hard to even tell which is which. C# is more class-oriented and the core JS checker uses no classes at all, so the porting story gets quite a bit more difficult there.
Couldn't you just use static classes? I don't see how that would be a factor at all, seems like a very superficial reason that would be easy to work around.
Remember, code is written for humans. It is not so much a technical limitation as it is a social limitation. Working in a codebase that does not adhere to the idioms of a language will quickly become a pain point.
The Go code is not that far off how one would write it even if it were being written from scratch. A C# project littered with static classes is not at all how one would write it from scratch.
Static methods and classes are commonplace and a normal practice in C#, particularly as extension methods (which, quite often, you guessed it, act on data). There isn't that much difference between a type defining simple instance methods and defining extension methods for that type separately if we look at codebases which need to have specific logic grouped in a single multi-KLOC file like, apparently, TS compiler does. There are other issues you could argue about but I think it's more about perception here and structuring the code would've been the smallest issue when porting.
The ship has sailed so not much can be done at this point.
> Static methods and classes are commonplace and a normal practice in C#
Certainly. The feature is there for a reason. That does not mean that you would write the codebase in that way if you were starting from scratch. You would leverage the entire suite of features offered by C# and stick to the idioms of the language. You would not constrain yourself to writing Go code that just happens to have C# syntax.
> The ship has sailed so not much can be done at this point.
It has been ported to a new language before. It can be ported to a new language again. But there wasn't a compelling reason to choose C# last time, and nothing significant has changed since to rethink that.
> It has been ported to a new language before. It can be ported to a new language again. But there wasn't a compelling reason to choose C# last time, and nothing significant has changed since to rethink that.
> This sounds a bit like being phrased in bad faith in my opinion.
Why? That certainly wasn't the intent, but I am happy to edit it if you are willing to communicate where I failed.
> I do not understand why Go community feels like it has to come up with new lies (e.g. your other replies) every time.
I don't know anything about this Go community of which you speak, but typically "community" implies a group. My other replies are not of that nature.
But if you found a lie in there that I am unaware of, I am again happy to correct. All I've knowingly said is that Go was chosen because its idioms most closely resemble the original codebase and that C# has different idioms. Neither are a lie insofar as it is understood. There is an entire FAQ entry from the Typescript team explaining that.
If the Typescript team is lying, that is beyond my control. To pin that on me is, well, nonsensical.
Actually, let me fix my previous comment. I was responding to quoted text in your comment which was obviously not your opinion. Sorry.
> It has been ported to a new language before. It can be ported to a new language again. But there wasn't a compelling reason to choose C# last time, and nothing significant has changed since to rethink that.
I still think this is phrased in an unfortunate way. To reiterate, my point is the damage has already been done and obviously TSC is not going to be ported again any time soon. I do not think Anders or TS team are up-to-date on where .NET teams are nor I think they communicated internally (I may be wrong but this is such a common occurrence that it would be an exception to the rule). I stand by the fact that this is a short-sighted decision that has every upside in the short-term wins at the cost and no advantage in long-term perspective. Especially since WASM story is unclear and .NET having good NativeAOT-LLVM-based prototype as a replacement to Mono-based WASM target (which is already proven and works decently well).
Having to prioritize ease of porting for such a foundational piece of software as a compiler over everything else is not a good place to be in. I guess .NET concerns are simply so small compared to the sheer size of TS that might as well accept whatever harm will come to it.
> I still think this is phrased in an unfortunate way.
I do not discount your notion, but why?
> To reiterate, my point is the damage has already been done
What damage has been done, exactly?
Call it a lie if you will, but the Typescript team claims to be ecstatic about how the port is nearly indistinguishable from the original codebase, meaning that nothing was lost - all while significant performance improvements and a generally better end user experience was gained.
Perhaps you mean the project has always been fundamentally flawed, being damaged from the day the first Typescript/Javascript line was written? Maybe that is true, but neither C# nor any other language is going to be able to come in and save that day. Brainfuck would have been just as good of a choice if that is truly where things lie. To stand by C# here doesn't make sense.
> I do not think Anders or TS team are up-to-date on where .NET teams are nor I think they communicated internally
Whether or not that is the case, did they need to? Static methods and classes in C# are most likely of Anders' very own creation. At very least he was right there when they were added. There is no way he, of all people, was obvious to them.
> Having to prioritize ease of porting for such a foundational piece of software as a compiler over everything else is not a good place to be in.
Ease of porting was a nice benefit, I'm sure, but they indicate that familiarity was the bigger driver. Anyone familiar with the old code can jump right in and keep on contributing without missing a beat. Given that code is written first and foremost for people, that is an important consideration.
Idiomatic C# is typically quite different and heavily class-based, but then a compiler would usually look very different than an Enterprise C# application anyway. You can use C# more in a functions and data structures way, I don't think there is something fundamental blocking this. But I guess there are many more subtle differences here than I can think of. Go is still quite a bit lower level than C#.
