[ale] Ruby vs C, a non-technical chat

[leamhall at gmail.com (leam hall)]

On Thu, Aug 6, 2015 at 8:08 AM, Darrell Golliher <darrell at golliher.net> wro

Leam,  you mentioned fun in your criteria.  I like that.    The most fun
> I?ve had programming lately has been
> in Go.   pro-tip for googling it is is to use ?golang?
> https://golang.org     I?ve done basic, pascal, modular-2, assembly, C,
> C++, Perl, Python, Javascript and probably a few others I?ve forgotten.
> Go rocks.
>
> I don?t spend a lot of time thinking about it from a career path
> perspective, but there are some signs it could prove
> marketable, maybe.    Docker is built with it for example.  Digital Ocean
> seems to use it a lot too.
> Here?s a list of companies..  https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/GoUsers
>
> Maybe it?s never be more than a niche language ? I can?t predict the
> future on that one.  I hear good things about Rust and with Apple?s Swift
> being open sourced it has a shot a being generally useful too.
> Javascript has even gotten more interesting with the rise of the node,
> express and angular (aka. MEAN stack when you add mongoldb).
>
> Anyway.. I digress.  I was trying to plug Go. :-)
>
> cheers,
>
> Darrell
>

Hey Darrell,

A couple years ago I looked at Go. It's touted as a systems programming
language and since I work on systems, that seemed like a good route to
take. I even made something nominally useful with it (
https://github.com/makhidkarun/vargr_names/blob/master/vargr_names.go)

Some guy named Brian is supposed to be putting out a book on it the end of
the year (
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-Addison-Wesley-Professional-Computing/dp/0134190440/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438866668&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=brian+kernigan+go)
and I've thought about combining the O'Reilly video course with the book as
a Christmas gi....errr.... winter work project.   :)

The main issue I'm trying to overcome with coding is getting work done at
work. I've done stuff with a few languages but keep getting pulled back to
shell or manual because that's what work supports. With Ruby, I can say
"It's on the machines, so I can use it". Go would be a harder sell unless I
can find a job at a Docker shop or some place that is producing system
tools. Given my current coding skills, I see that as unlikely in the short
term.

Some of the skills I'm learning now should translate; writing tests, making
the code handle errors and exceptions. Some are only useful to OO
languages.

Still, having fun rates high.

Leam


-- 
Mind on a Mission <http://leamhall.blogspot.com/>
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