[Nottingham] Oh no! YAPL: Go

[Martin]

What?!

Yet Another Programming Language?!

Google offers "Go" to the world:

Go (programming language)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_%28programming_language%29

####
Goals

Go aims to provide the efficiency of a statically-typed compiled
language with the ease of programming of a dynamic language.[8] Other
goals include:

    Safety: type-safe and memory-safe.
    Good support for [unsafe] concurrency and communication.
    Efficient, latency-free garbage collection.
    High-speed compilation.
####

Sounds like Java?... But with a C-esq-like syntax... And intended for
multi-threaded systems...


On one aspect, I consider it good to try to put together a new clean
language and to try new programming language ideas. It's good to
progress the art of programming.

And then again: "Go" has been compared unfavourably against Algol68
from over 40 years ago! Have we really learnt nothing and not
progressed the science and art of programming in all that time? Also,
do we really need a whole new language to enforce a subset of C++ and
with yet another slightly different (subtly incompatible) syntax?

Is there anything radically or usefully new in "Go"?


Google are certainly big enough to develop a 'new' programming
language. However, having seen the example some years ago of "C#" from
a certain other company 'expanding' upon C++, is Google embarking upon
similar vanity to push it's own branding further?

Or am I getting overly suspicious?


Cheers,
Martin