The last time his "I want off" article was reposted[0], the comments were pretty rough, ranging from ad-hom attacks to (at best) misunderstandings of the arguments he was making.

I see this article being an address to these criticisms (which are not limited to this forum, I've seen similar arguments on twitter, etc.).

Pointing out shortcomings isn't really impolite or unfair. The author specifically mentioned shortcomings of Rust as well.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31191700

Pointing out shortcomings isn't impolite - writing that Go wasn't designed, but happened by accident is however (IMHO).

> writing that Go wasn't designed, but happened by accident is however [impolite]

That's one of the most mild and inoffensive criticisms I've ever read on the internet. You can't seriously be indignant about that.

Especially since it was designed by computer science luminaries who are almost certainly better programmers/engineers than the author of this blog.

It's also more accurate to say that Rust wasn't designed / was an accident since it was technically a side project of one guy at Mozilla.

Both languages were designed by probably better programmers than most in this thread. For that matter, the vast majority of successful programming languages surely were. I'm utterly lost at how that relates to anything.

One can plainly be a good programmer and yet create a bad language. I'm sure you are well-informed enough to analyse his argument on its merits, even if it were written by a gang of monkeys with typewriters.

The truth cannot be impolite.

> The last time his "I want off" article was reposted[0]

Of note: the last time in question was yesterday, the flagging and ad-hominems pretty obviously made lime's cupeth runneth over.

I might not agree with fasterthanlime's opinion on Go (9/10 times I would opt to use Go over Rust), but calling this post a "shitpost" is unnecessarily dismissive. The post, like his previous post on Go, contain well thought out points that add to the discussion at the very least. Also I like his sense of humour :)

Edit: though, I suppose saying Go is not designed is also equally unnecessarily dismissive and hyperbolic.

> Portland Oregon, the capital of grunge, coffee, poor weather and whiteness

it's kinda a shitpost

It's sarcasm, dumb humor - not trying to be inflammatory, or provocative - i.e. not shitposting.

And let's face it, Portland kinda takes itself too seriously.

I moved from Austin TEXAS to Portland to get away from the heat and forced conservitism. I also moved to Portland for the weather (cool and wet vs hot as hell and dry). I don't have to use my air conditioner!

As for Portland taking itself too seriously, are you serious? Portland has so many quirky things that the conservative states don't have(much less putting walls up and making some people, making 2nd class citizens ((yes, voting rights)), and you say Portland is too serious? Good luck with that gaslight.

They're funny(ish) asides which is pretty normal for lime.

I'm not complaining. I get the joke. I'll leave this for the Seattleites to argue.

yeah the actual titleholder to those is seattle

Well-thought out, how? It's flogging a dead horse in a transparent, deliberate attempt to create controversy and flamebait. That's a shitpost pretty much by definition.

I don't think it's obvious this was done in bad faith, even if the author is at times flippant.

Reminder that I'm not part of /any/ Rust teams, not part of the Rust foundation, etc. etc. My site is my space, and it is specifically designed to let me post my point of view without having to bear ( ) the responsibility of speaking for entire communities at once.

It's important for individuals to be able to do that, and it's on everyone else to make the distinction.

Thanks for your article. I hope you can ignore all the vitriol. It's embarrassing to see what I thought was a generally intelligent community having a collective tantrum because someone was mean about its favourite toy.

> the Rust community used to be known for its politeness and always being fair to other language communities

I have no particular affinity for Go or Rust. As an outsider this is not how I’ve ever perceived the Rust community, because the most present and visible parts of the Rust community were people showing up and complaining that Project X didn’t use their preferred silver bullet

Also honestly it's very toxic to anybody right of center. It's the type that says "we're so accepting" when really they only are of certain stuff. Lots of pronoun people and making the mascot "non binary" is needlessly shoving their ideology down people's throat. Not a problem in the U.S. because it fits with the corporate woke ideology but sure as hell gonna be if they want more worldwide community.

It's also way too hugboxxy and tbh that feels just as toxic some times as the alternative. Positivity to the point where it's obviously fake and forced and insincere.

Edit: howinteresting I can't reply to your comment but you are proving my point. At least you people are being more honest that it is intended to exclude a bunch of people.

As someone who both loves the Rust language and is very right of center, I've never found politics to pose much of a problem for the Rust community in practice. Yes there is occasional virtue signalling here and there but people don't let it get in the way of making programs that work.

Yeah, as someone who's gay and left-wing but equally irritated by the 'virtue signalling' stuff (my ideology is basically r/stupidpol), I don't find the Rust community too bad.

(FWIW, I appreciate your open-mindedness. I think that's the main thing I find objectionable on (parts of) both sides of the aisle: an inability to regard those who disagree as fundamentally well-intentioned human beings who happen to hold different beliefs.)

"pronoun people"

What, you cant handle queer people existing?

> Their comment is about the (almost universally straight) people who demand to be called 'xe' or 'qwerty' or whatever.

The vast majority of people I’ve seen using neopronouns, or “it” or “they” pronouns (either exclusively or alternatively with classical gendered pronouns, e.g., “she/they”) have nonbinary gender identity or agender identity, and the vast majority of the exceptions are trans, and all the rest (i.e., the cisgender ones) I’ve encountered are one of bisexual, pansexual, asexual, or same-gender attracted, usually also with gender non-conforming presentation.

I have yet to encounter a cisgender heterosexual with nontraditional pronouns for their gender, though I am sure there are some somewhere doing it.

> The vast majority of people I’ve seen using neopronouns, or “it” or “they” pronouns (either exclusively or alternatively with classical gendered pronouns, e.g., “she/they”) have nonbinary gender identity or agender identity, and the vast majority of the exceptions are trans, and all the rest (i.e., the cisgender ones) I’ve encountered are one of bisexual, pansexual, asexual, or same-gender attracted, usually also with gender non-conforming presentation.

Yes, I'm talking about sexuality, not gender. Most of the people I know, and/or have met, who identify as 'xe' and suchlike, are straight and usually cis (in the sense of 'not actually trans' - they do often have 'gender identities' like 'genderqueer' which amount to 'I wear heels sometimes').

It's predominantly - in my experience - straight people who covet the counter-cultural aspect of being 'queer', but who face the small problem of not actually being gay or trans or anything else, which is easily remedied by adopting one of those slightly-meaningless 'gender identities' which uniformly amount to 'I'm a teeny bit [masc/femme] sometimes'.

(I literally had a conversation with someone once who argued that watching porn didn't mean they weren't asexual. They also happened to be in a long marriage with a husband they no longer slept with, though they once had. It took all my strength not to say "lady, you're not asexual or queer, you're just a bored housewife in a dead marriage".)

There's still a lot of people out there who consider 'they/them' to be nonstandard when used for a specific person (as opposed to 'they/them' as a replacement for the generic 'he'; almost everybody opposed to that has come around or died).

Yeah, I should have clarified that I don’t consider that non-standard. Well, it’s semi-standard, I suppose. But yeah, I had in mind the ones more like ‘xe’ and ‘xer’.

I know many trans people who use nonstandard pronouns like xe, ze or it.

Sorry, that's true, I didn't mean that literally no trans people (or gay people, black people, etc) use non-standard pronouns. I meant that it has nothing to do with their being gay or trans. Certainly some people may happen to be trans and also happen to use those pronouns.

I hope they are not expecting normal people to use these silly words.

good

Calling a well documented blog post, even one you disagree with, a "shitpost" should be an embarrassment to you.

Guy makes a blog post about Go a few years ago. It gets posted here time and time again, not of his doing. A bunch of people challenge his premises, so he makes another post diving deeper into his arguments.

So what?

What's up with the literal hundreds of "Golang is amazing" posts this site has had? Is someone attempting to express dissent clearly that much of a bother?

But he doesn't dive deeper! If anything, he's more shallow. This just doesn't read like an honest appraisal of Go's pros and cons to me, he already has his mind set from the beginning (ok, we knew that two years ago already) and is just heaping on invectives: "one really good bit does not a platform make", "Evidently, the Go team didn't want to design a language", "Go is not adequate for production services unless your shop is literally made up of Go experts (Tailscale) or you have infinite money to spend on engineering costs (Google)" etc. etc.

What makes me angry about all this Go-bashing is that it might influence decision makers against moving from things like PHP or Node to Go - which I think would be an improvement, no matter how many flaws Go may or may not have.

> What makes me angry about all this Go-bashing

It's just a language! Take it easy.

The guy is not "heaping on invectives" - he's not criticizing you or someone you care about. He's pointing out some flaws in a language in a sarcastic way.

Oh just some sarcasm:

"Mom smokes, so it's probably okay"

"I remember fondly the time an audience member asked the Go team "why did you choose to ignore any research about type systems since the 1970s"? (Emphasis his, not mine)

"It doesn't matter who points out that "maybe we shouldn't hit ourselves in the head with a rake repeatedly""

"Or you can be horrified, as you realize that those complex problems only exist because Go is being used."

"you adopted a language that happened by accident" (a direct criticism at Go users)

"Evidently, the Go team didn't want to design a language."

"Because it needed to be familiar to "Googlers, fresh out of school, who probably learned some Java/C/C++/Python" (Rob Pike, Lang NEXT 2014), it borrowed from all of these."

I just have up here. Do you really think a production conversation can start from this? ESR has flamed less haughtily.

It only hurts, because it is true.

I would consider "Evidently, the Go team didn't want to design a language" to be at least borderline invective. From dictionary.com, definition 3: "an insulting or abusive word or expression". Yeah, that's pretty clearly insulting.

Oh just some sarcasm:

"Mom smokes, so it's probably okay"

"I remember fondly the time an audience member asked the Go team "why did you choose to ignore any research about type systems since the 1970s"? (Emphasis his, not mine)

"It doesn't matter who points out that "maybe we shouldn't hit ourselves in the head with a rake repeatedly""

"Or you can be horrified, as you realize that those complex problems only exist because Go is being used."

"you adopted a language that happened by accident" (a direct criticism at Go users)

"Evidently, the Go team didn't want to design a language."

"Because it needed to be familiar to "Googlers, fresh out of school, who probably learned some Java/C/C++/Python" (Rob Pike, Lang NEXT 2014), it borrowed from all of these."

I just gave up here. Do you really think a production conversation can start from this? ESR has flamed less haughtily.

I'd choose Node or PHP over Go for a greenfield project. (Although I can't think of a case where I'd choose them over Python.) All of those languages at least give me an FFI escape hatch in case I need it that isn't absolutely horrendous, both from a dev experience standpoint and a performance standpoint.

Yeah, preach. I wrote Go professionally for a couple of years, and I write Python now (I know, I know, but they pay me a ridiculous amount to do it). I would choose almost anything, including JS, over Go. It's a good language if you need to write highly concurrent high-level code with low-skill devs, but not for much else, and even then it requires an inordinate amount of menial boilerplate work to get simple stuff done. Having said that, I would still choose it – indeed anything - over Python.

Just a small reminder: fasterthanlime is not the Rust community

From the outside the Rust community seems so defensive about Go that it makes me very reluctant to dive deeper into Rust.

I use both & like both. Ignore the noise!

Yeah, same. They’re both nice languages, they both have great tooling, and they both have areas where they shine. I don’t see them as competitors really, but “You can also implement X in Y” is a fairly useless statement, of course you can.

I’m glad we have as many languages options as we do, and I enjoy writing a variety of languages for a variety of different projects. Sure, I have moments where I think “ugh why can’t I do X in language Y” or “C is cleaner in Y” etc etc.

I’ve found helpful people, critics, and fanatics in every language community. Don’t let that dissuade you from learning Rust (or Go, or …)

One person is not the community