Ken Thompson: Why did we create Golang?

Ken Thompson answers a question about the reason behind the creation of Golang at Google I/O 2012.

[andrewshorts]

For a guy who is in his 80's, he's still kickin'

[denischiosa]

I had an opportunity to write Go for 8 months, it was such an exciting experience. Being a java developer, I felt that I was closer to the hardware while writing Go, no abstractions, no syntactic sugar, just basic code

[monad_tcp]

Not being C++, that's a feature that sells any language, really !

[Basil-the-Frog]

I absolutely agree with Mr. Thompson about the C++ standards. At about C++2011 (and we are now at 2020), the language got so complex that I cannot remember it all. It is just not possible.

And, reading through the rest of the comments, I guess 2011 WAS the 0x version, which someone said was delayed. It was delayed because it took a lot of bending over backwards and other crazy antics to get everything to work, I assume.

[akhilQXZnP-k]

many of our python backend now moved or moving to Golang after performance benchmarks testing

[DJenriqez]

Switching to golang was the best thing I ever did...

[zeroeternity]

he's giving dumbledore for programming vibes

[Wrotan]

Why is this channel posting interviews from 12 years ago? Feels like some commentary could be added about the past 12 years. How has go evolved? Are there still problems?

[mek]

how come they pronounce it 'go' and you spell it 'golang'

[unebonnevie]

My experience with the C++ is that it tries to be Java! And the *friend* thing in C++ class is atrocious. But, of course, it has its beauties like any language. For me, C is the ruling programming language.

[TomasPruzina-uwql]

This was before C++11 and after 03. No wonder people wanted a way out.

[glaurung]

Go and C/C++ are for different communities so I'm guessing the rest of the talk he probably gives the context. I think he was trying to bring C/C++ level performance bench marks to backend web programming to compete with Java and NOT to function as an alternative to C++. Had that been their intention they would have ended up with something like Rust.

[cybernit]

I sort of like Golang, but the problem is the code executable is so large bloated, a shame. But Golang seems easier to understand than RUST or C++. I'm just so use to C.

[musiclife]

go is improved version of both c and c++, i mean improve code readability and trying to get near the speed of c and c++ maybe in the future development of go language, it could be as fast as c and c++

[kaustubhparmar]

Can some one give more context, why this is funny? I realise that 0x was not launched till 2011, and exceeded the original timeline, but still do not realise the joke...

[laughingvampire]

the irony is they made the ultimate scripting language

[BruhMoment-ygjv]

"Because c++ bad" daring today aren't we?

[hellelo.]

Go is simple as C but easier. (C is simple but hard)

[Lion_McLionhead]

Languages are invented manely to drive engagement nowadays. His best work was when games were the final product rather than clicks.

[predragmiletic]

i bet ken had exactly zero to do with golang