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0 points_ph_7y ago0 comments

But that is exactly the point - you would have added the best proposal available to the language vs. waiting till all issues are worked out with generics. Go 1.0 has been released 7 years ago, in that time a ton of happy Go users were able to use Go as it is. All the discussions on generics clearly show, that the Go team is interested adding them, but that all proposals so far had distinct shortcomings.

Personally, I am very happy with what Go offers today, I would rather keep a small and simple language, which allows me to concentrate on doing work, rather than trying to keep up with features added to the language. I am not even sure, I want generics to be added to the language, until they come up with a really great concept which maintains the simplicity of the language.

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pjmlp7y ago

ML (1973) and CLU (1975) introduced generics to the world, followed by a myriad of approaches to implement them across multiple languages, so plenty of time.

_ph_OP7y ago

No one claimed, that languages with generics don't exist. But if you follow the discussion about generics in Go, Russ Cox did a thorough discussion of all the proposals on the table and why they would mean giving up some of the core traits of the Go language. As soon anyone suggests an implementation not colliding with the core Go goals, the Go team probably would pick it up quickly.

Or phrased it in another way: with all the years of experience on generics, they still got them wrong when implementing generics for Java, e.g. with the type erasure.

pjmlp7y ago

Not at all, he focused on how Java and C++ do it, and later on the Go 2.0 proposal admited that they were a bit closed minded to look for how other language implementations work.

"In retrospect, we were biased too much by experience with C++ without concepts and Java generics. We would have been well-served to spend more time with CLU and C++ concepts earlier."

https://go.googlesource.com/proposal/+/master/design/go2draf...

crimsonalucard7y ago

This is definitive proof that the lack of generics was a mistake from the beginning.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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pjmlp7y ago

ML (1973) and CLU (1975) introduced generics to the world, followed by a myriad of approaches to implement them across multiple languages, so plenty of time.

_ph_OP7y ago

Or phrased it in another way: with all the years of experience on generics, they still got them wrong when implementing generics for Java, e.g. with the type erasure.

pjmlp7y ago

Not at all, he focused on how Java and C++ do it, and later on the Go 2.0 proposal admited that they were a bit closed minded to look for how other language implementations work.

"In retrospect, we were biased too much by experience with C++ without concepts and Java generics. We would have been well-served to spend more time with CLU and C++ concepts earlier."

https://go.googlesource.com/proposal/+/master/design/go2draf...

crimsonalucard7y ago

This is definitive proof that the lack of generics was a mistake from the beginning.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse