> You get the productivity of something like Python with the performance of C++. Or at least very close to it in both cases.
s/very close/close enough/
C++ is still multiple times faster in many/most situations [1]. And while it's hard to measure productivity, it's nearly impossible to beat out-of-the-box productivity Python offers [2].
But do people need the performance of C++? Usually not. They just need something faster than Python/Ruby that uses less memory than Java.
And do people need the productivity/prototyping of Python? Often not. Most work is on established code bases where static typing (even weak static typing) is a huge benefit.
Go is full compromises, but in ways that turn out to be very pragmatic.
> And do people need the productivity/prototyping of Python? Often not. Most work is on established code bases where static typing (even weak static typing) is a huge benefit.
You can change "productivity/prototyping", remove productivity and just keep prototyping.
Dynamic typing like python has has nothing productive.
Dynamic typing means replacing few minutes to fight against the compilers errors by hours of debugging in runtime/production of problems that could be avoided easily with typing.
That a problem that appears very qickly as soon as you leave the world of "quick and dirty prototype".
s/very close/close enough/
C++ is still multiple times faster in many/most situations [1]. And while it's hard to measure productivity, it's nearly impossible to beat out-of-the-box productivity Python offers [2].
But do people need the performance of C++? Usually not. They just need something faster than Python/Ruby that uses less memory than Java.
And do people need the productivity/prototyping of Python? Often not. Most work is on established code bases where static typing (even weak static typing) is a huge benefit.
Go is full compromises, but in ways that turn out to be very pragmatic.
[1] https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/...
[2] Though if you're making a TCP or HTTP server, Go is pretty great. For a CLI, Python stdlib argparse is unparalleled.