> No, I don't have any solid data, but I do think the majority of people posting about Go on HN have either Python or Ruby backgrounds.
Right. I find it odd because I don't get why Go is a supposed replacement for Python. Does Go have a framework like Django, a good SQL API/ORM, numerical computing packages, scientific packages, machine learning? This is where I see people using Python the most.
> And yes, there's a fine line between conducting needed optimizations and wasting time prematurely optimizing, but people would clearly rather spend a little more time up front in exchange for a big speedup
Yeah, fast by default is not only acceptable but desirable, I don't think using a modern compiled language counts as premature optimization. It doesn't look like using Go is a lot more complex/time consuming than Python, you lose some flexibility but win others (e.g., being able to distribute binaries).
Go is vaguely Pythonic (extensive stdlib, and generally adheres to the Zen of Python). Even if there's not much in terms of frameworks, it's great for replacing small parts of a server that have to handle a lot of load. A lot of people have existing Python servers that grew into being performance hotspots. It fits into the sort of niche that node.js does.
Personally, I'm not keen on it - I find that roughly 2/3rds of my code end up being error handling - and hope Rust eventually takes off.
Right. I find it odd because I don't get why Go is a supposed replacement for Python. Does Go have a framework like Django, a good SQL API/ORM, numerical computing packages, scientific packages, machine learning? This is where I see people using Python the most.
> And yes, there's a fine line between conducting needed optimizations and wasting time prematurely optimizing, but people would clearly rather spend a little more time up front in exchange for a big speedup
Yeah, fast by default is not only acceptable but desirable, I don't think using a modern compiled language counts as premature optimization. It doesn't look like using Go is a lot more complex/time consuming than Python, you lose some flexibility but win others (e.g., being able to distribute binaries).