The concurrency and threading in Go just feels like magic compared to every other language. I'm a goroutine addict and I refuse to be rehabilitated.
Just from observations over the years, I don't think there's any other language quite like this, in terms of how things can end up happening in any thread.
I was amazed how well are goroutines integrated into the language when I saw the first videos from Rob Pike. Then I actually started using Go for concurrent code, and noticed one thing, it's extremely easy to leak goroutines. There is no proper way to cancel them, they need to cooperate via select/context. Go developers eventually learn hacks to deal with it, but the simple go+chan style of programming style you see in tutorials is usually not safe. I still consider Go a remarkable piece of software. The runtime really doesn't have any seriously bad edge cases, it just works. But as a developer, I now prefer a slightly more explicit approach to concurrency. I've spent the last year developing an async runtime for Zig and I'm now more comfortable writing concurrent code in Zig than I was every using Go. I have more options for how to handle closed channels, I can cancel any operation, etc.
One reason it's easy to leak goroutine is that channel producer blocks waiting on consumer, once channel consumer exits the producer goroutine leaks. Go doesn't allow consumer to close the channel.
In Rust when receivers all drop, the producer will error instead of blocking, so Rust is better in this aspect.
SamInTheShell · · focus · HN ↗
Just from observations over the years, I don't think there's any other language quite like this, in terms of how things can end up happening in any thread.
lukaslalinsky · · focus · HN ↗
delifue · · focus · HN ↗
In Rust when receivers all drop, the producer will error instead of blocking, so Rust is better in this aspect.