OSCON 2012 notes

[Brad Anderson]

On Sat, Jul 21, 2012 at 5:38 PM, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg at gmx.com>wrote:

> On Saturday, July 21, 2012 19:13:20 Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> > On Sat, 21 Jul 2012 14:41:05 +0200
> >
> > Paulo Pinto <pjmlp at progtools.org> wrote:
> > > Regarding systems programming, Go could actually play in the same
> > > league as D
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > The trick with Oberon, which Go also uses, is to have a special module
> > > reckognised by the compiler with primitives to do the low tricks C
> > > offers. Additionaly any function/method without body can be
> > > implemented in Assembly. This is nothing new, Modula-2 already worked
> > > like this.
> >
> > If a language has to resort to such "outside-of-the-language" tricks
> > like that to do system software, then it's just simply not a systems
> > language.
>
> I tend to agree. However, it's my understanding that when the Go folks talk
> about Go being a "systems language," they mean that it's meant for building
> large systems, not that it's meant for writing low-level stuff like
> kernels,
> which is what C++ and D mean when they call themselves systems languages.
> So,
> I believe that the core problem here is that the term is being used
> differently
> by different languages rather than Go claiming that they're a systems
> language
> in the C++/D sense when they have to rosert to outside of the language
> tricks.
> But I could be wrong about what they mean.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis
>

The Go people no longer refer to Go as a systems language.  I believe they
did intend for it to be a systems language in the same manner D is but over
time they decided to focus less on that.

Here's what Russ Cox said on that matter:

"We removed the word 'systems' because it was too limiting.
Go is more general than that.  It is still a great language for
writing systems."

Regards,
Brad Anderson
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