Google has open-sourced programming language - GO!

[FoBoT]

http://golang.org/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/11/google_go/
http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2009/11/hey-ho-lets-go.html

Go is a great language for systems programming with support for multi-processing, a fresh and lightweight take on object-oriented design, plus some cool features like true closures and reflection.

Google has open-sourced an experimental programming language that attempts to crossbreed a dynamic web-happy language like Python with a compiled language like C++.

"There is a growing rebellion against cumbersome type systems like those of Java and C++, pushing people towards dynamically typed languages such as Python and JavaScript, [but] some fundamental concepts such as garbage collection and parallel computation are not well supported by popular systems languages," the company says.

"We believe it's worth trying again with a new language, a concurrent, garbage-collected language with fast compilation."

Dubbed Go, the new language was unveiled today via the Google Open Source blog. "Want to write a server with thousands of communicating threads? Want to spend less time reading blogs while waiting for builds? Feel like whipping up a prototype of your latest idea? Go is the way to go!"

Google says the language is type safe and memory safe, and it's specifically designed for building software that runs on multi-core machines. Systems and servers are written as lightweight processes called goroutines. "Run thousands of goroutines if you want - and say good-bye to stack overflows," Google says.

But more than anything else, Google plays up the speed of the language - at both compile time and run-time. "Typical builds feel instantaneous," the company says. "Even large binaries compile in just a few seconds. And the compiled code runs close to the speed of C. Go lets you move fast."

 

[Crusty]

http://code.google.com/p/go/issues/detail?id=9

I wonder how that's going to turn out.... 😛

 

[brandonb]

Whats with the push for dynamic languages? Type systems that are "cumbersome" work just fine for me, and I prefer it because I know how to interact with it and what is going on.

I find things like LINQ (projections), dynamically typed systems to be very hard to work with. Maybe I'm old skool.

 

[FoBoT]

http://code.google.com/p/go/issues/detail?id=9

I wonder how that's going to turn out.... 😛

they'll just pay him off, 100 shares of google stock

 

[Cogman]

Whats with the push for dynamic languages? Type systems that are "cumbersome" work just fine for me, and I prefer it because I know how to interact with it and what is going on.

I find things like LINQ (projections), dynamically typed systems to be very hard to work with. Maybe I'm old skool.

people are lazy and don't want to have to worry about whether their variable is a float, string, or double.

Personally, I don't really get it either. It isn't THAT hard to understand strong typed languages.

 

[Markbnj]

people are lazy and don't want to have to worry about whether their variable is a float, string, or double.

Personally, I don't really get it either. It isn't THAT hard to understand strong typed languages.

I'm with you guys on that, but I'll reserve judgement on Go. In a model that encourages small, independent processes, weak dynamic typing might be just fine.

So, who thinks Google will change the name?

 

[Oyster]

Look at the list of things the language doesn't support: http://golang.org/doc/go_lang_faq.html

They try to tell us how languages haven't evolved, but how can they justify omitting things like generics, type inheritance, method overloading, exceptions (WTF)?

[q]Regarding operator overloading, it seems more a convenience than an absolute requirement. Again, things are simpler without it.[/q]

WTF - I am supposed to believe them with this crap!

Again, I don't want to be too critical because it could turn out to be the next best thing. But just to gain some initial buy-in, why not just come out and say that things are still in development? Anyone else see an issue with these omissions?

 

[chronodekar]

So, who thinks Google will change the name?

I agree. The name is just horrible. "Go" is actually the name of a japanese board game. Similar to chess, but not exactly.

But just to gain some initial buy-in, why not just come out and say that things are still in development?

Actually, they DO say that. Here,
http://golang.org/doc/go_faq.html
Under "Usage" it says like this,

Who should use the language?

Go is an experiment. We hope adventurous users will give it a try and see if they enjoy it. Not every programmer will, but we hope enough will find satisfaction in the approach it offers to justify further development.

And besides, considering it's from Google, won't you expect it to be in a perpetual beta stage until half the world has started using it? 🙂

-chronodekar