So, Google have decided the world needs another programming language huh? They might have a point, if they had produced something radically different, but they didn’t.

Google’s “GO” is just another C-like language with object-oriented features, supposedly making software development really easy and helping you avoid all the nastiness. They claim all the simplicity of something like Python, while providing the “safety” of C and C++.

That last bit is hilarious – C is relatively safe in the hands of an experienced developer, C++ can tie you in knots before blowing your brains out.

They also claim part of the motivation is the lack of a new systems language in the past decade. Like I say, if this had been a different solution from everything else, they would have a point, but this is just another set of syntax and semantics performing the same old same old.

Delphi only just sits outside the 10 year timeframe, C# falls within it. Both very similar in style and structure and both very easy for programmers with C/C++ backgrounds to pick up. Furthermore, options exist for compiling Python to native code.

My guess is that this is a student or work experience placement project that they thought they would put out in the wild and it’s full of meh-ness to be perfectly honest. The world needs another programming language like this, like a hole in the head.

Still, it’s more headlines for good ol’ Google eh?

And so the highly predictable, depressingly familiar pattern of a “right of centre” conservative regime continues, with Barnett’s mob now intent on privatisation of public services as a “solution”. As reported in The West Online, Colin Barnett and the blue-rinse set have plans to privatise public sector services, in an attempt to rein in spiralling costs.

What a complete and utter load of tosh. On the face of it, privatisation is a very tempting prospect and indeed, it is impossible to argue against the value of adopting private sector principles when contrasted with certain public sector methods. The danger, however, is that services get auctioned off to the lowest bidder, wrapped up in fluffy nonsense about achieving the best balance of service and cost.

Anybody who thinks that decisions will be made on any factor other than cost, quite frankly has rocks in their head.

As I said, the idea of adopting private sector practices is a good one, I myself have argued for more of a private sector style approach in certain situations, but you can bet your life on the fact that this is just another instance of problem avoidance by a conservative administration. You see, when faced with issues of balancing community service delivery and costs of such service provision, your average right-of-centre mob will reach for the “cure all” of privatisation. They spout ideological bullshit about how it will make things more efficient, yet the only thing that REALLY matters to them is that it becomes “someone else’s problem”.

What will follow, if this madness is allowed to go through, is a rapid deterioration in quality of service, and an exodus of staff who are ALREADY pretty pissed off with their lot. This then forms a negative feedback loop until a “white knight” arrives in the shape of a Labour government, they put it all back into public hands, except the bits they really don’t want, followed by 4 years of neglect and underspending from them as well.

Listen up you idiot politicians, keep the public sector in the hands of the state, dump the “nanny state” attitudes, the “let’s go back to the 1950s” attitudes, and instead of simply passing problems around, stand up and actually do something about it.

I predict, however, that all concerned will remain clueless, gutless wonders…