Comment by teddyh

5 years ago

> 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

5 comments

teddyh

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grep_name  5 years ago

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

StandardFuture  5 years ago

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.

  • teddyh  5 years ago

    > 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.

    A discussion would not solve the problem. The most Google (for example) could say is “we would never do that”, and then what? What makes this reliable. Google would instead have to change its image so as to not seem arbitrary and capricious in its bannings. Which they can’t.

    • StandardFuture  5 years ago

      I thought that it would be obvious that I was referring to a community discussion with or without Google's participation. It should also be obvious that "we would never do that" does not satisfy as a reasonable conclusion to said proposed discussion.

      It's rather irritating that a more generous interpretation of my comment was not considered here. Perhaps assume that my comment is not some attack on you or defense of corporate languages but rather an intellectual pursuit of a more nuanced scenario than just "good/bad" judgements?

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