

Google Go started in 1972 - vinutheraj
http://code.google.com/p/go/source/list?r=0be68ce1d89d9b633329f806a6d074514a563b83

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jgrahamc
The whole point of those early commits is that it's a joke! Just go read them.
They are basically laying out the simple Hello, World! program and showing its
evolution over time.

1972: Hello, World! is written in B 1974: Hello, World! is re-written for the
new C language 1988: Hello, World! is written in ANSI C (two commits, go read
them to see the diff) 2008: Go

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chmike
Unless the dispute resolution is on good tracks to be solved, I don't find it
funny because Google has the weight to squash anyone on its way, even
unintentionally.

Go was a good name for a language invented at google but it is unfortunately
not available. The name 'lango' suggested in a comment was, in my opinion, a
brilliant alternative name proposal. And the most funny alternative name
proposal was 'go2'.

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tvon
I don't think this relates to the "Go" vs "Go!" situation, I think it's just
meant to represent the evolution of Google Go as a language.

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sant0sk1
That's interesting, I thought it was a direct (joke) response to the "Go" vs
"Go!" situation. The "Go!" author stated that his language came first and then
we find these _conveniently aged_ commits the following day.

Either way, it's nice to see Google not taking itself too seriously.

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tvon
I could be completely wrong of course, and the timing _is_ convenient. I guess
it depends on when these changes were pushed in, but then it's hard to tell
when a possibly fake timestamp was made...

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jerf
_Possibly_ fake?

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tvon
Yeah, that really didn't need to be added...

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RyanMcGreal
I know Google likes long betas, but this is ridiculous.

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nl
That's hilarious. I don't quite get the dates for ANSI C, though. The draft
date looks correct, but Wikipedia has it being ratified in 1989.

Incidentally, here's a great thread that just shows the more things change the
more they stay the same (from 1988):
[http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/browse_thread/thr...](http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/browse_thread/thread/ab6fa381e5b0b840/20b174b18cdd919d?hl=en%14b174b18cdd919d)

Quotes:

"This process could go on forever, but there is a strong desire to adopt a
"good enough" standard in a timely fashion rather than working toward a
"perfect" standard that is too late to matter. Many of us feel that the
current draft is "good enough""

"C is rapidly catching up with Pascal as the second most well known language
but it has a long way to go before it becomes as well know (and perhaps as
useful)as BASIC"

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gjm11
Google Go started in 1972 in the same sense as Clojure started in 1960.

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coderdude
Meta comment: What is with all the smiley faces in these comments? 6 in 24
comments. Either people here get weirdly giddy over Google or the userbase is
now mostly in their teens.

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vinutheraj
There was a discussion on using emoticons even in serious communication,
yesterday I think.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=933585>

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coderdude
Excuse my brash language, but a circle jerk is hardly serious communication,
is it?

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jacquesm
[http://code.google.com/p/go/source/detail?r=4e9a5b0955321f15...](http://code.google.com/p/go/source/detail?r=4e9a5b0955321f15379f80dcc96cdb8b3eb4eb0d)

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akamaka
Can someone explain to me what I'm looking at? I don't get what this is, or
it's significance? It is a joke of some kind?

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stilist
Presumably a lighthearted response to the Go! creator.

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uriel
Except that the hg repo has been up for longer than the whole fuss about Go!

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tel
99.9% of it coming after 2008.

Actually, this is a good idea. I'm going to go name-squat repositories on
every other hard-to-search programming language name I can think of.

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kylec
Where did the early commits come from? What revision control systems existed
back in 1972?

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theli0nheart
I would venture to say none. UNIX was completed in 1969, and C itself didn't
exist until 1972.

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DrJokepu
SCCS (Source Code Control System) was developed at Bell Labs in 1972.

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wozer
Looks like Go is forked from B?.

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mbrubeck
More of a successor than a fork, since Ken Thompson is the creator of B and is
also on the Go team. :)

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edu
hahaha, B -> C -> ANSI C -> GO Spec :)

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uriel
Lets hope this shuts up all the annoying people that got nothing better to do
than to whine about a similar name having been used by another language, now
it is clear who was first ;)

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thwarted
Yeah, and Mozilla should re-rename Firefox to Firebird.

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cakeface
Don't you mean Phoenix?

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cubtastic71
Was it called 'go' back then? Or did they just search their archived servers
to find anything dated so long ago no one could argue with them?

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khafra
Hint: Look at the name that checked in the 1972, 1974, and 1988 entries.

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sp332
And the email addresses, "Brian Kernighan <research!bwk>". Remembering to use
bang paths shows how much thought was put into this prank, very cool.

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vinutheraj
I hope you also noticed the R=ken(Ken Thompson) and R=dmr(Dennis MacAlistair
Ritchie) in the commit log messages :)

