[HN Gopher] V Language Review (2022)
___________________________________________________________________
V Language Review (2022)
Author : mawfig
Score : 115 points
Date : 2022-06-18 20:31 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mawfig.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (mawfig.github.io)
| whiterock wrote:
| It would be very nice if you could do the same thing for Nim.
| [deleted]
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| People like to dunk on V because of its author and community, but
| I will say that the design of the language itself (leaving aside
| the implementation) is genuinely interesting. To me, it feels
| like what Go should have been. And I like Go. So obviously I have
| a bit of a soft spot for V.
|
| Disclaimer: I've never actually used it.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > the design of the language itself (leaving aside the
| implementation) is genuinely interesting [...]
|
| > Disclaimer: I've never actually used it.
|
| I can make a hypotethical language as well (I do it all the
| time), but I wouldn't make a website about it and give it a
| name.
| mawfig wrote:
| I'm sorry if you feel this is a dunk on V. Having seen quite a
| bit of discussion both on hacker news and other places saying
| that V has improved significantly since Xe's articles a few
| years ago, I thought it would be worth while to attempt a
| modern evaluation of the language based on where it is today.
| Throughout, I tried to ground my review by basing it on the
| claims the developers themselves make.
|
| Would you mind expanding on your later comment? While I'm not a
| Go programmer, it's pretty easy for me to see why it has the
| features it has based on their commitment to fast compile times
| and being easy to learn. V on the other hand feels like an
| incoherent list of the biggest buzzwords in the industry right
| now with no clear overall design.
| Rochus wrote:
| > I thought it would be worth while to attempt a modern
| evaluation of the language based on where it is today
|
| A good idea indeed, thanks for the effort.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that this article itself was
| a dunk. I was commenting on the discussion I see elsewhere on
| the language (including elsewhere in this comments section).
| The article itself is a good summary of the problems with V
| -- mostly with its implementation which does appear shoddy.
|
| V's design address many things I feel are lacking whenever I
| use Go: nil safety, sum types, option/result types, mandatory
| error checking. I think V is best understood in the context
| of being Go++.
|
| Having looked a bit deeper though, the immutability and
| generics stuff does feel a bit bolted on, so I do see your
| point.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| Well this is sure to be a reasonable thread with reasonable
| arguments coming from both sides. Surely the usual patterns of
| any vlang criticism won't pop out again.
|
| Unfortunately, Vlang isn't a project out of an overeager young
| dev (not anymore at least), but at the same time, it hurts no-
| one. Sure, the author is making 1k a month out of it, but it's
| not like it's the scam of the century making him rich. I see
| startups on HN lying harder than that every week. Just let the
| dude make his stuff on his side, have a good laugh when articles
| like this come out, and that's it. Look at legitimate
| alternatives like Zig or Odin, and keep V as a fun little
| distraction when you want to see what overpromising looks like
| jitl wrote:
| My recommendation is that if you like the look of V, you should
| consider Zig or Odin as well. Personally, Zig seems like the most
| promising C-but-modern language due to the interesting compile-
| time programming features and impressive investment in toolchain
| infrastructure.
| andi999 wrote:
| An article like the V one on Zig checking the claims would be
| awesome, wouldnt it.?
| Tozen wrote:
| Zig is arguably not something similar enough that it would be
| attractive. Odin and Vlang are kind of offshoots of Golang, so
| would be more similar and attractive to those users. If a
| person is a Golang user, they would be more likely to see the
| advantages and possible improvements of Odin and Vlang.
| iamsahebgiri wrote:
| Where does language like Vala stand? Is it worth checking out?
| nicoburns wrote:
| Similar to a language like D. Technically quite good, but not
| quite compelling enough that it has picked up momentum that
| is likely to push it into the mainstream and generate a large
| library ecosystem.
| jitl wrote:
| I think of Vala as the "Swift of Gnome". As in, a nice
| language primarily useful for programming in the World Of
| Gnome, like Swift is a nice language for programming in the
| World of Apple. I don't use Gnome, so I'm not interested in
| their Swift. -\\_(tsu)_/-
| ushakov wrote:
| TLDR
|
| > At this time, I would not recommend spending time on V. I would
| also be very cautious when taking claims made by the authors at
| face value.
| smcl wrote:
| Christine Dodrill's early assessment of the language might be of
| interest here: https://xeiaso.net/blog/v-vaporware-2019-06-23
|
| She doesn't pull any punches, but I think she was quite prescient
| in capturing the vibe of the project.
| Tozen wrote:
| Why in the world do competitors of this programming language
| insist on dragging out evaluations from 3 years ago, which
| state that V is vaporware and before the language was even
| released? This is 2022, not 2019, and we are talking a hundred
| releases later (https://github.com/vlang/v/releases).
|
| At least stick to the current evaluation (or attack), which is
| more relevant, and make points from there. But, keep in mind
| that these attacks are on a young language that isn't 1.0 yet,
| so even with this we are talking about a moving target. The
| language is still evolving.
| Seirdy wrote:
| Xe is phasing out that name in favor of "Xe". Xer domain name
| change was a part of that shift.
| umvi wrote:
| Is 'Xe' the name or the preferred pronoun of the person in
| question? Is this like Latinx but race neutral? Gender
| identity accommodations seem to get more complex and
| confusing by the month...
| [deleted]
| xena wrote:
| Why not both?
| andsoitis wrote:
| Name, at least that's my interpretation from looking at her
| Contact Me page:
|
| > Copyright 2012-2022 Xe Iaso (Christine Dodrill).
|
| https://xeiaso.net/contact
|
| [correction] on their GitHub page I see: Please call me
| (order of preference): Xe/xer, They/them or She/her please.
|
| [edit] obscure to have your pronoun also be your name (or
| maybe your title?). Or maybe it is all just satire, given:
| "I am an ordained minister with the Church of the Latter-
| day Dude. This allows me to officiate religious ceremonies
| in at least the United States." - https://dudeism.com
| xena wrote:
| To be honest having a person's name be the same as their
| nominative case pronoun is kind of cool from a whole
| different perspective than you normally get to see. By
| doing this experiment I get to see how bad of an idea it
| is to do that. So far the xe/xer pronouns don't seem to
| stick as well, but it looks cool so I'm gonna keep up the
| experiment.
|
| I'm also quite seriously an ordained minister.
| [deleted]
| rvz wrote:
| Who gives. Just use 'they' or 'them', or whatever. It is a
| universal catch all, gender neutral, i18n inclusivity
| conformant, ISO 69420 compliant, race neutral, etc.
|
| At this point, all of it is basically designed to further
| confuse and only create a very monthly chaotic outcome for
| everyone.
| spottyn wrote:
| smcl wrote:
| Ah I'm sorry, I hadn't checked the website in a little while.
| I now see there's a redirect and that there is a different
| name in use.
| mawfig wrote:
| Thanks for linking Xe's blog here! It's a few years old and
| I've seen a lot of comments on HN that suggest V has improved
| significantly since 2019 so I thought it might be worth looking
| into for myself and writing down a review of what I found.
| prirun wrote:
| I'm always interested in new languages and loved your write-
| up & evaluation of V.
|
| I really don't get the purpose of someone exaggerating the
| capabilities of their language, to the point of outright
| lies.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| I think people think that's "marketing".
| Tozen wrote:
| The linking to Xe's blog is not doing you any favors, because
| then it comes off as part of an effort by competitors and
| those with personal agendas to mount another attack.
| Remember, the competition between various younger languages
| has become a bit fierce and dirty. So what people's
| intentions are can be quite fuzzy.
|
| It would have arguably been better to allow your evaluation
| to stand on its own, so that points could be made
| independently.
| mawfig wrote:
| Every evaluation in my blog is fully reproducible from the
| version of V I linked to and I've included all the source
| code used as well. My post stands on it's own.
|
| Instead of insinuating I'm some kind of competitor or have
| a personal agenda, I would encourage you to respond to the
| actual points raised in my post.
| [deleted]
| pwdisswordfish9 wrote:
| At this point, why do people even spend time on debunking the
| marketing claims of this language at all? It's been done to
| death, whoever was going to be convinced the V developer is a
| charlatan has already been convinced. For better or for worse.
| judge2020 wrote:
| I think everyone wants a "Rust but better" language to exist,
| and that very well might be V in 5 years, but Rust wasn't
| advertising features as 'completed' years before they were
| implemented/stable and neither should V. Continuing to point
| out the design issues will either get the marketing claims
| removed (just throw up a roadmap!) or articles like this will
| be used to show V's progress in a distant future.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| _Everyone_ wants that? Not even _everyone_ wants something
| like Rust. But I doubt that everyone who programs in Rust
| (and like it somewhat) want Rust-but-better (when that
| entails learning a completely different language, at least).
| agumonkey wrote:
| I wouldn't bet a single dollar on V improving to any
| qualitative level. It's been a surprisingly large transpiling
| hack. Graydon Hoare had some PLT knowledge before going on
| doing Rust, it's not just feature names and potential impl.
| Eigen7 wrote:
| klyrs wrote:
| For what it's worth, there has been some progress on the
| language and the author has responded to past criticism. I've
| been following developments of the language for a few years
| now, and I'd love it if all the claims came to fruition. Since
| it's a work in progress, past criticism doesn't necessarily
| apply -- leaving me to wonder "is it not bullshit yet?" Since
| the author has a habit of overpromising and even declaring
| things finished before even starting on them, and newcomers
| might not know what to think, his claims warrant regular
| scrutiny. It appears that V is still for vapor.
| mindwok wrote:
| Have a look at the GitHub repo, it's very active and there are
| clearly some passionate people putting a lot of work into it.
| So it's worth looking at the language again every now and then.
| [deleted]
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-06-18 23:00 UTC)