Comment by teddyh
5 years ago
This right here. Many people say things like “Google would never…”, and they might be right. But that’s not what matters, what matters is people’s beliefs about what Google would do. And this is why Google should have absolutely no influence over your web browser, your programming language, etc. Again, that’s perceived influence, not actual influence. The fear exists regardless.
I've always looked at their "soft projects" like Golang, HTTP3, QUIC and I guess, Mozilla, as purely ways for them to influence technology in ways that profit their motives, rather than contributing for the sake of improving the industry. It's the long game for them, and it seems to be effective.
> your programming language
This is something I've been thinking about. Does anyone avoid Go the way that they avoid other google products? Why or why not? I've been liking it a lot lately as a systems programming language but am not sure how to parse the google side of the equation, as I try to avoid most google offerings
> Does anyone avoid Go […]
Well, I do, and I’ve written about it here before¹, but I usually get only downvotes for saying it.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8733705
Thanks for this, it is important to consider the trend of company-owned languages and what it means to participate in that. It'll probably knock me off of Go eventually. Unfortunately I don't see many alternatives that have all the benefits I like about go, but I'll keep looking
Go is one of the few Google things that I will actually use and promote.
I completely understand your justified fear of putting so much stake into a company owned language. It is completely reasonable.
But, since Go is only indirectly benefitting Google (as most of their non-ads products do) then I do not feel that using it is contributing anymore to Google's bottom-line or control than visiting an arbitrary website that uses Google Analytics, or using an Android phone, etc. will do.
But, an important discussion for the Go community (and any company-owned language) to have would be one around the hypothetical of Google shutting off it's contributions to the language.
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> Does anyone avoid Go the way that they avoid other google products?
Hell yes!
Also: It was dead for me the moment a *giant search engine company* decided naming something with 2 letters is a good idea.
That is either proof of being completely negligent with regards to wasting people's time in terms of making their work more difficult; or it is proof of bragging how good your search engine is.
Neither is a favorable thing to do. And actually probably both apply, people do probably miss a lot of good search results on Go no matter how smart their search engine is.
And you can't force everyone in every nook and cranny of the Internet to spell it "golang".
Yes I do, specifically because it is a google product. I have no interest.
More out of principle than any kind of real reason. I don't want to play any part in google getting its tentacles into yet another part of my computer. I know it makes no real difference either way, but there's something about the idea of 'even the language the app's programmed in is owned by google' that just kinda makes me uncomfortable.