Bill Baxter wrote:
On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 7:56 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu
<[email protected]> wrote:
Bill Baxter wrote:
Looks interesting.
I should have said "backing of a billion-dollar company" not
"billion-dollar backing". Certainly it doesn't have the latter. But
it has backing in some sense, anyway. Even if it's the 20% time of
five guys, Google's paying them for that time. And whether or not
they *have* any deep pocket backing, people will perceive a tie
between the company and the language, which means it can ride on the
wave of Google's excellent mind-share, esp. among programmers. Ken
Thompson is also a very well-known and respected name from Unix and
Plan 9 (and Rob Pike too?). These are all very strong marketing
advantages. Looking to the future, I suspect if Google does adopt a
new systems language, it's much more likely to come from within than
be NIH. Because that way they'll have much more control over it if,
and not have to worry so much about IP issues (not that Google spends
much time worrying about IP...), etc. And if it becomes widely used
in Google, then that's a very bouncy spring board from which to foist
it on the rest of the world.
It's definitely going to be a strong competitor for D's audience.
--bb
Bill - you are absolutely correct. It will be targeting the _same_
audience as D. It can be said that D now have a serious competitor.
Will Walter increase the marketing for D ?
Even though the current D developers will likely NOT move to Go, it is
possible that new developers may not come to the D community in the
future, in the same numbers.
Of course this all depends on how good Go actually is, and how easily
they can build a community, and what leadership, - and the quality of
the leadership - they have.
Nick B
