Yes, google c++ style guide (https://google.github.io/styleguide/cppguide.html) recommends to avoid exception as well as complex template metaprogramming, and if one has to be used, user visible api should avoid templates if possible.
>recommends to avoid [...] template metaprogramming,
Fyi...the Google style guide doesn't ban generics/templates. It's discouraging the "template metaprogramming" which is a technique beyond parameterized types (generics) ... e.g. using recursion in Turing Complete template programming to calculate compile-time values.
It uses generic type parameters. If you ask the author if the library would have been easier and "less complex" to write if generics language feature were removed from C++, I think we'd be certain the author would say "no."
Even without asking the author, if anyone believes the library is suffers "simplicity debt" because it uses generics, they can fork the code, rewrite it, and then prove to skeptics that the hashing library was much clearer and more maintainable without generics.
I didn't say google banned templates, you quoted me yourself, and the quote states exactly what you're saying, that template metaprogramming is recommended to be avoided.
Go isn't against generics, they are open to discussion about adding them if right approach to implement them without adding much of extra complexity would be found. Generics do add complexity, it is bearable in most cases, especially given the benefits, but it still exists.
Authors don't want to end up with something that C++ has, where you have to manually limit yourself in order for your code to not be too complex and unmaintainable, at the same moment, adding templates just to have them won't add any immediate benefit of large magnitude.
Well, your response was to grasleya and he wrote: "Why is it that relatively simple and ubiquitous language features like [...] generics are [...] an unacceptable amount of complexity?"
[...] Are there any Java, C++, etc. developers arguing for the removal of these features [...]?"
And your reply was: "Yes, google c++ style guide recommends to avoid [...] template metaprogramming,"
... and therefore, that makes it look like you're conflating "generics" with "template metaprogramming".
If your intention was to respond with a random tidbit unrelated to the proposed generics for Go, it means you're just introducing a non-sequitur and confusing readers trying to reasonably follow the context of the thread. The op (grasleya) wasn't talking about "template metaprogramming" to compare to "generics" in Go.
Google recommends avoiding exceptions for a completely different reason though: Google has a massive C++ codebase that was built when C++'s particular implementation of exceptions had huge technical issues that made dangerous to use dangerous to use. Now that Google has a bunch of code that was written as if exceptions didn't exist, they have made the decision that it will be easier for Google if they just continue to pretend that exceptions don't exist, rather than having to rework (and possibly break) a bunch of already-working code.
So that is the point. Go design doesn't allow these complexities, so there will be no confusion when one should use them and when not. This somewhat limiting, of course, but turns out it's not the end of the world, benefits may outweigh the limitations. If you really need those, C++ is always available to you.
Go allows a wide range of complex metaprogramming through reflection, struct tags, ... to say that Go is void of that kind of garbage is lying.
Go also has a bunch of weird rules regarding type conversion and assertion, its type system isn't covariant... Go has its share of problems, so much that go maintainers themselves keep on introducing type unsafe API in their own std lib. Go has a type system problem, period.
Finally all platforms supported by Go aren't first class. Windows doesn't support Go plugins or Go shared libs AFAIK for instance.
It certainly has problems, no sane person would seriously argue that it is literally and objectively perfect. Reflection is complex, unsafe library is a hack, that's exactly what is stated in the official description of both libraries and both recommended to be avoided if possible. No one tries to say opposite.
Yet, code in Go tends to be easy to read, uniform, very well suited to work on in a team. No megabytes size of code style is required, in most cases there would be no problem to understand code written by other person because of how simple the language is.
> code in Go tends to be easy to read, uniform, very well suited to work on in a team
This was not my experience working on a moderately sized Go codebase. In fact, it was one of the messiest agglomerations I've ever had the displeasure of working with (and I worked at Twitter when it was still a monorail). Everyday code that is simple in most other languages was a drawn-out mess in Go. The type system was an obstacle to be worked around. Metaprogramming (via go generate) was a joke.
That statement would be more credible if you identified that unholy mess of Go code so that we could form independent opinion.
Or if you showed a few examples of "code that is simple in most other languages was a drawn-out mess in Go" or how Go's "type system was an obstacle to be worked around" when compared to type system of other mainstream languages like C++/Java/C#.
As it stands, you're in a minority. The consensus is that Go codebases are among the most readable.
Go codebases are readable in that you can figure out what a given line is doing - but when 3 out of 4 lines of code are duplicated error handling, it's difficult to figure out what the "success case" of even relatively simple functions is.
> As it stands, you're in a minority. The consensus is that Go codebases are among the most readable.
Your statement is as unsubstantiated as his. But at least the parent doesn't feel as arrogant claiming he represents the majority. Go doesn't magically makes code more readable than any other language. It's just something some gophers like to think since they often start projects from scratch.
> The consensus is that Go codebases are among the most readable.
Among who--other gonuts/gonads/gophers? In my neck of the woods a Go application over a few thousand lines is already a yellow flag and a Go application, period, requires defending the choice over TypeScript or Java. (Difference being, of course, I'm not holding up my experiences as objective.)
I find the statements about the type system very credible. I've been programming go full time for nearly 3 years and not a single day goes by that I'm not bitten by it.
As far as whether go makes it easier or harder to make easy to manage code bases I don't know that it matters one way or another. I've written bad code in other languages and go. I will say, I've never seen a large go code base, and I suspect if I did it would suffer very much from things that people complain about with the go language.
> This somewhat limiting, of course, but turns out it's not the end of the world, benefits may outweigh the limitations.
The situation is not really benefit vs. limitations. The style guide is put as general guide. It's a proven way of writing code inside google that most people agree and think is acceptable.
It's about taking a common ground on how to use a language, rather than finding a sweet spot of trading-off. Benefit vs limitations is part of the equation, but it's put in a context that only makes sense inside Google.
Therefore it's not self-evident that the benefit vs limitation argument automatically applies to general use cases outside of Google.
Or, I do not like people use Google or any other large organization's approach to automatically prove that those rules makes sense in different settings.
I can buy using generics sparingly (especially in the form of complex template metaprogramming). But never using it at all? Can you imagine convincing the C++ community to give up Boost because its use of templates is too complex?
They also seem to admit that if they were to do it over again and start from scratch they'd use exceptions:
> Things would probably be different if we had to do it all over again from scratch.
This is when exceptions where not actually used in the code. The bloat is merely from enabling C++ compiler flags to generate rtti and exception support code.
> It seems that thinking on exceptions in low-level languages is firmly in the "no way" camp.
Except Go isn't particularly close to the metal anyway. The only way Go is low level is in the same way Java is low level: it's very limited in terms of the programmer's ability to create abstractions.
> If exceptions are so great, why Rust and Swift aren't using them?
Technically speaking, Rust does have exceptions with its unwinding feature. The panic! macro throws an exception, and catch_panic allows you to catch it. It is implemented exactly the same way as C++ exceptions, with the accompanying code bloat and performance pessimization, and you have to think about exception safety exactly the same way when writing unsafe code.
Rust has unwinding, which indeed opens a whole can of worms, but to say that it has exceptions is to miss the point. Rust has nothing anywhere near close to first-class resumable exceptions as surfaced in, say, Java. Not only is the `catch_unwind` function (it's not called `catch_panic`, btw) deliberately difficult to use (specifically to deter people from using it as a general error handling mechanism), the language deliberately defines an alternate compilation mode where unwinding does not exist and hence any attempt to "catch" it will fail. As a result, I have never once seen Rust code APIs that use `catch_unwind` as a mechanism for error handling; the purpose of that function is to prevent unwinding from crossing FFI boundaries.
> If exceptions are so great, why Rust and Swift aren't using them?
Because they made a mistake by not including them?
More seriously, you are approaching the argument the wrong way. You don't judge a feature by how popular it is but by analyzing objectively whether the presence or absence of that feature leads to higher quality code
Why would anyone try to convince Boost users to give up boost? On the other hand, designing new language, it is reasonable to consider ways of reducing code cost and complexity by avoiding such features. Large fraction of C++ developers won't understand how half of boost libraries works at all and that is type of complexity Go tries to avoid. There are tradeoffs, that is undeniable, but it is a valid approach to address this exact issue.
