There you Go (pun intended). Go even replaced a low-level language like C++ and achieved the same result in the end. I don't know why I thought it's Java, probably the first Kube was initially in Java. It's even better that they managed to pull that off.
But it did not replace it. Google runs on Borg. Go lets you build things fast, but the lack of strong typing and the vast amount of language pitfalls make maintenance hard in the long run.
The community also has the attitude to pretend that these pitfalls don't actually exist, which is very different from C++ where most peculiar behaviours are well-understood and controlled.
Sorry, I don't think I have been explicit in my comment. The language of K8s, a system which is the so-called direct descendant of Borg, replaced C++ at that layer. Also, Go is strongly typed.
I'd argue that go is statically typed rather than strongly typed due to `interface{}`.
> There is no real agreement on what "strongly typed" means, although the most widely used definition in the professional literature is that in a "strongly typed" language, it is not possible for the programmer to work around the restrictions imposed by the type system. This term is almost always used to describe statically typed languages.
Actually Google knew at the time they "designed" k8s that Borg doesn't scale due to fundamental design flaws in it's basic architecture. Still they reused the exact same architecture for k8s.
Who wants to know the details of those scaling issues can google for the Omega paper.
The "proper"™ solution to those design flaws was implemented in Mesos (and to my knowledge nowhere else until now).
> It really is about time developers stopped pushing their own personal preferences as if it's some kind of fact.
Agreed, so let's all go to Rust or OCaml because they have very strong static typing systems. ;)
Both C++ and Go have plenty of warts, with C++ having way too many footguns and Go allowing you to use it as a dynamic language whenever you figure it's too much work to go through your problem with static types.
> Go even replaced a low-level language like C++ and achieved the same result in the end
Did it, though? Honest question. I get the feeling that it ended up competing with Java (and Python) more than it ended up replacing C++. The C++ folks seem to be way more into Rust than Go.
I'm a Java fan and an ex-Scala aficionado. I would have hoped that JVM would eat the pie when it comes to cloud deployments but it didn't happen. Like Scala.js never happened and TypeScript became the type system of the web. JVM languages will remain at the application layer, concerned with microservices, data processing, streaming, databases, etc. It's not what folks seem to be way more into, it's all about tradeoffs. I am talking here about layers and the suitability of a language at a specific layer. I don't know about Rust, but Go proved that it can handle it. If Rust would prove to be better, that would be great, but only time will tell. Until now it did not happen, instead people are trying to fit Rust in scenarios where a higher-level language would go round in circles (GUI programming, microservices, game development etc.). For Java it is too late, if GraalVM with native images and value types would have been released earlier, maybe we could say that Java could compete with Go at that layer, but it is not, the train has left the station long time ago. Only if Oracle comes out of the cave and throw a lot of money at a JVM alternative to Kubernetes, which is likely to happen in the foreseeable future, given the investments and the attention the Java platform has received recently.
Plenty of K8s operators written in Java. Sure, it's not not underpinning K8s itself, but tbh, what language K8s is written in doesn't really matter, so long as it works.
Yes, exactly my thoughts, the problem is that devops generally are used to Python/Go and in my company though they don't make it mandatory, they recommend Go. Also, they have a repulsive reaction to everything .NET and JVM :).
> Also, they have a repulsive reaction to everything .NET and JVM
It's an interesting phenomenon I observe quite commonly.
I think in the devops space they see these VM based languages as basically introducing ten redundant layers of unnecessary assumptions and complexity on top of what is already a good foundation - the Unix OS layer. They know the unix os layer well but every time they deploy one of these VM based languages it creates headaches through unique and strange behaviour that violates their assumptions and knowledge and they have no way to learn it since you need years of experience as a developer to become comfortable with it all. From a developer perspective, we see the OS as this annoying ball of complexity and want VM languages to manage that and make it go away.
So it's all about what you know better and where your comfort zone is in the end. For a long time the developers had the upper hand because the OS story was a train wreck, but containers have turned that around in recent years, so now it is not such a crazy thing to pin down the exact OS and version and entire dependency chain you are going to deploy on.
Fun fact: Python and Go are both managed languages and need some kind of VM.
I guess those people are just not educated enough. Those Ops people don't know much about programming in large usually. A lot of them for example think it's OK to write serous programs in Bash. This says it all, imho.
It's OK when someone looking after admin stuff isn't a full blown programmer. It's a different kind of job after all. But this needs to be taken into account when looking at that mentioned phenomenon.
Fun fact: There are formers devs among Ops, and sometimes vica versa.
Go binaries are statically compiled usually, no VM or managed. It's a simple language for simple solutions, which is often underrated.
Not that versed in Python, but there is CPython.
Bash is totally ok in the hands of someone who uses it for good ;) Agree it has too quirky syntax when you need complexity, so not good for large stuff.
Footguns are everywhere. You usually trade one in for another.
Go binaries still include the Go runtime which handles GCing etc., much like Python.
They're not VMs, but it's really a semantic difference, if you're comparing it to Java, especially now that GraalVM native compilation is gaining popularity.
I moved from C++ to Go. It made programming enjoyable to me again. With couple of lines of code, huge and well-thought system libraries and very accessible external modules and gomod I can create a working SW fast. No complicated configuratioms, no cmake, no autoconf, no cryptic compiler errors, no operator overload surprises, no slow template mess, no missing debugging symbols. Of course if you work on C++ rendering engine or you have a huge project already written with all the build and dependency workflow done and it is working fine then Go won't help you or solve anything for you. But I am not going to write anything in C++ ever again (except firmware for microcontrollers / Arduino). It was just too frustrating and too complicated. I can imagine most C++ developers still don't know all language features C++ offer because is simply over-complicated!
