Go is still not good

(blog.habets.se)

644 points ustad | 1 comments | 22 Aug 25 09:25 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

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abtinf ◴[22 Aug 25 13:26 UTC] No.44984403[source]▶

Go has problems, sure. But I’ve yet to see a hit piece on Go that actually holds up to real scrutiny.

Usually, as here, objections to go take the form a technically-correct-but-ultimately-pedantic arguments.

The positives of go are so overwhelmingly high magnitude that all those small things basically don’t matter enough to abandon the language.

Go is good enough to justify using it now while waiting for the slow-but-steady stream of improvements from version to version to make life better.

replies(1): >>44990423 #

Mawr ◴[22 Aug 25 22:05 UTC] No.44990423[source]▶

>>44984403 #

Yep, most of what the author complains about are trivial issues you could find in any language. For contrast, some real, deep-rooted language design problems with Go are:

- Zero values, lack of support for constructors

- Poor handling of null

- Mutability by default

- A static type system not designed with generics in mind

- `int` is not arbitrary precision [1]

- The built-in array type (slices) has poorly considered ownership semantics [2]

Notable mentions:

- No sum types

- No string interpolation

[1]: https://github.com/golang/go/issues/19623

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39477821

replies(1): >>45027075 #

1. baranul ◴[26 Aug 25 14:30 UTC] No.45027075[source]▶

>>44990423 #

There are other choices of languages, that are close to and influenced by Golang. Languages such as Vlang[1] (which addresses several issues mentioned) and maybe Odin[2]. Even more, they are at the stage where advance programmers can contribute or influence them in the ways that they might find satisfactory.

Golang is too far down the road and cemented in its ways, to expect such significant changes in direction. At this stage, people need to accept it for what it is or look elsewhere.

[1]: https://vlang.io/

[2]: https://odin-lang.org/

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