Hector Martin

i have used Go for the past two months now i don't know who this language is for it both treats you as too stupid and too smart at the same timehttps://twitter.com/AmyZenunim/status/1241069163772346369 …

so, it's no secret that the person who designed the language (Rob Pike) made it for programmers who are too stupid (sorry, sorry, he said "unsophisticated") to know what a good programming language is and it shows in droves

in Go, you're not allowed to leave an variable unused. ever. for any reason. the code will not compile. unused variables are not permitted. this has a number of knock-on effects. let's say i'm trying out a function from a library i've just imported. i don't know it very well.

so i import the package, and call the function with the arguments i think it needs, and assigning the output to the number of variables i think it wants. i don't know that the args i've given it are wrong yet. and i won't, for another ten minutes.

now i have to write all of the handler code for every single variable it assigns to. i have to copy/paste an `if err != nil` 3-line boilerplate. i have to printf every variable w/ the correct type. and then, after all that, it tells me the args are wrong.

so i fix the args. oh, well, the library wasn't terribly clear. i actually needed a different function, with different args, and different assignments. time to spend another 10 minutes writing boilerplate. but it's just like... how is this agile? how is this iterative?

obviously the language thinks i'm stupid, which is why it forces me into this workflow at gunpoint. it's not like C that lets you do whatever you want, including blowing your own foot off. but then it assumes you have the entire program mapped out in your head before you begin.

but having it all mapped out is not how an "unsophisticated" programmer programs. they rapidly iterate, try new functions quickly and haphazardly. so it wasn't designed for "unsophisticated" programmers. it was designed for smart supersenior programmers.