Correction: I think it is much more important that Go remains internally consistent in its use of "square" brackets.
On Wednesday, July 15, 2020 at 8:54:58 PM UTC+2 Hein Meling wrote: > When you refer to beginners, I think you mean developers from other > languages (Java/C#/C++...) that already know the concept of generics. I > don't think they will have problems adapting to a square brackets > notation... they are smart people, and after all they have to learn many > other syntactical differences as well, so one more difference is not going > to be the deal breaker. And if they make <mistakes>, the compiler will > [surely] tell them ;-) > > In fact, the square bracket notation is already adopted for declaring the > type of maps and slices. So switching to angle brackets will make Go's > generics implementation internally inconsistent, since you must declare a > map[string]int with angle brackets and then elsewhere, you will be using > <int> for the same concept. I think it is much more important that Go > remains internally consistent in its use of angle brackets. > > Best, > :) Hein > > > > On Wednesday, July 15, 2020 at 7:03:40 PM UTC+2 dmar...@gmail.com wrote: > >> On Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 9:45:41 PM UTC-7, robert engels wrote: >>> >>> My opinion is that every major language (no flames please… lots of >>> developers write lots of programs and make money doing it) that supports >>> generics uses < > for generic types, so Go should too - since there is no >>> reason to deviate from this other than to avoid changes to the parser. >>> Seems better to pay this cost once - rather than every Go program that uses >>> generics being harder to read for eternity (especially for those readers >>> that use a lot of languages). >>> >> >> This really captures my feeling perfectly, the parser changes have to be >> less man hours to build and maintain going forward than the man hours of >> all the existing and new developers. All options have a downsides at least >> <T> is as "standard" as one can get when talking about generics. >> >> Some version of <T> will help beginners in reducing the cognitive load >> when learning and using Go. >> >> Thanks, >> -Dan >> >> >> >> >>> > On Jul 14, 2020, at 11:13 PM, Ian Lance Taylor <ia...@golang.org> >>> wrote: >>> > >>> > On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 8:21 PM Ahmed (OneOfOne) W. <oneo...@gmail.com> >>> wrote: >>> >> >>> >> This feels a little better, but honestly I'm still all for angle >>> brackets or like Watson suggested, guillamets. >>> >> >>> >> fn(T1)(fn2(T2)(fn3(T3)(v))) // 1 >>> >> fn[T1](fn2[T2](fn3[T3](v))) // 2 >>> >> fn<T1>(fn2<T2>(fn3<T3>(v))) // 3 >>> >> fn«T1»(fn2«T2»(fn3«T3»v))) // 4 >>> >> >>> >> To me, with a background in C++ and Typescript and a little bit of >>> Rust, #3 and #4 are just natural and easier to read. >>> > >>> >> > The advantage of parentheses is that the language already uses >>> > parentheses for lists in various places. Of course that is also the >>> > disadvantage. >>> > >>> > When considering something other than parentheses, I encourage people >>> > to look for objective reasons why one syntax is better than another. >>> > It's going to be different from other aspects of the language. So >>> > what reason would we have for preferring one syntax over another? >>> > >>> > For example: >>> > >>> > Robert already gave reasons why square brackets are better than angle >>> brackets. >>> > >>> > The disadvantage of guillemets is that they are hard to type on many >>> > keyboards. So to me either square brackets or angle brackets would be >>> > better than guillemets. >>> > >>> > The disadvantage of a two character sequence such as <: :> is that it >>> > is more typing. So again either square brackets or angle brackets >>> > seem to me to be better. >>> > >>> > An example of a reason that square brackets might be a poor choice >>> > would be ambiguous parsing, or cases where the code is harder to read. >>> > >>> > It's true that some other languages use angle brackets, but Go already >>> > does many things differently. That is only a minor advantage for >>> > angle brackets. To me at least it does not outweigh the >>> > disadvantages. >>> > >>> > In short, please try to provide reasons for a different syntax. "It >>> > looks good" is a valid reason, but please try to explain why it looks >>> > better than square brackets or parentheses. >>> > >>> > Thanks. >>> > >>> > Ian >>> > >>> > -- >>> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "golang-nuts" group. >>> >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to golan...@googlegroups.com. >>> > To view this discussion on the web visit >>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/golang-nuts/CAOyqgcX-OXktNtUs0G4Ns0iEr3R2qLPpU7q1%3DrOY93%3DAO16a3g%40mail.gmail.com. >>> >>> >>> >>> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "golang-nuts" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to golang-nuts+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/golang-nuts/5d25bceb-6c52-4fd0-b731-a1e6b4efc790n%40googlegroups.com.
