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dotGo 2015 - Rob Pike - Simplicity is Complicated

dotconferences · talk · Watch on YouTube

C, C++, Rust, Go & systems languagesProgramming language design

What it is

Rob Pike's dotGo 2015 talk argues that Go only seems simple, and that its simplicity hides real complexity that is part of the design. He explains the thinking behind Go's restraint in features.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN returns to it to explain why Go deliberately resists syntactic sugar and new features.

  • 7 people recommended it
  • 7 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2016, last 2023

What HN commenters said

  1. “I hadn't been particularly enthusiastic about Go but in the end Rob Pike won me over”

    Rob Pike talk that won over a Go skeptic

    musha68k, 2016-01 · Recommendation · in “Ask HN: Best (Tech) talks from 2015”

  2. “It's an active choice of the language to not allow many syntactic sugars that make the code have a much higher learning curve.”

    Good overview of Go's deliberate lack of syntactic sugar

    donatj, 2016-07 · Recommendation · in “John Carmack on Inlined Code (2014)”

  3. “Here's a talk by Rob Pike about simplicity, syntax, and language feature you might find interesting”

    Rob Pike on simplicity, syntax and language features

    paulriddle, 2018-04 · Recommendation · in “Ask HN: Why is data simpler than syntax?”

  4. “After using Go and listening to his talks (like [0]) I realized how wrong I was.”

    Pike's talks convinced the commenter of Go's design choices

    troytchell, 2018-10 · Recommendation · in “Iterative Optimization on Hot Paths in Go Apps”

  5. “I saw a talk of Rob Pike regarding the fundamental principle of Go to stick to simplicity first.”

    Go's simplicity-first principle and language feature convergence

    zubspace, 2019-07 · Recommendation · in “What's Coming in Python 3.8”

  6. “is a good discussion of just this point.”

    Discussion of how simplicity hides complexity

    hartzell, 2020-03 · Recommendation · in “Simple Systems Have Less Downtime”

  7. “I think these 2 talks will make you understand my idea a little bit better”

    Go's focus on readable code that scales

    yandrypozo, 2020-08 · Recommendation · in “New case studies about Google’s use of Go”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: go, rob pike, simplicity, language design, dotgo

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