Ecug Community promoter Xu Xiwei: The choice of programming language regardless of the camp, it's about taste

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Xu Xiwei , Qiniu ceo,ecug Community sponsor, go language expert, has the first go language book "Go Language Programming" in the country. has more than 15 years of Internet experience, has been in Jinshan, Shanda and other well-known companies as important technical positions engaged in core product development. During his tenure at Kingsoft, he first led the new WPS Office 2005 architecture Design and development as the chief architect, and then created the Kingsoft Lab to lead the research and development of frontier search and distributed storage related technologies as the founder and technical director. During the grand work, senior researcher, responsible for the Grand Xiangyun Project research, and then launched a Grand network project. The creation of the seven Qiniu in 2011 is still active in the forefront of technology.

Today, the main topic of our interview is not Lao Xu's development experience as a technology bull or his history as a founder, but the ECUG community he created in 2007. Ecug is known as effective Cloud user group, which was named Erlang China User Group. How does a community once about the Erlang language become a "sacred occasion" for technology exchange in cloud computing? Let's see how the Old man answers.

Q: What was the initial intention to build ECUG? What did this user group bring you and others along the journey? Do you have someone to thank?

The first purpose of establishing ECUG was to be aware of the friends who developed the server and to communicate best practices developed on the server side. On the one hand I am in Zhuhai such a second-tier city, and just from the desktop development transformation to the development of the server, I am personally very eager to communicate, learning about other people's advanced experience. On the other hand also feel that the south industry exchanges are relatively small, so I hope that they can contribute a little power in this regard.

To this day, this meeting is still the window that I understand the technological progress of other industries, basically the technical danale of various companies in China have come to ecug share their thoughts. Some people are still regulars, like Liu Qi, Xie Mengjun, Tianqi and so on. Perhaps they changed the company, but the agreement with ECUG has remained unchanged. Thank them very much.

Q: Ecug was first named Erlang China user Group, and now is the effective Cloud User group,2010 year name change is based on what is the consideration? Does this change also represent a technological environment, an era of change?

Erlang is a small language, and when we set up ECUG, few people in the country were interested in it. This language features distinct, is a service-side programming practice banner. So Ecug was originally called Erlang China User Group because we wanted to promote Erlang. But even so, from the first session of the ECUG Congress, we have not limited the need to be an Erlang language programming practice, as long as the service-side development of the practice of sharing can be.

At the ECUG conference in 2009, we discussed the change of name and finalized effective Cloud User Group, which we formally adjusted in 2010. This renaming is partly due to the fact that the topic of Erlang has become less ecug, insisting that the old name is already very famous. On the other hand, the era of cloud computing is clear, and we want to attract more people to participate in the sharing of best practices for server-side development. By 2011, we have further expanded the topic of ECUG, no longer limited to the service-side development of the practice, as long as the service-side areas of the topic can be, such as server operations, server security and so on.

Q: ECUG has been 8 years since its inception, and what is the biggest change from the point of view of members and activities?

Change is actually happening gradually. At the earliest, we explored the programming practice of the service side mainly around the Erlang language, and by 2011 the topic basically turned to go language. This is not my personal will, but the result of the changing times. To this day, the go language has basically ruled the cloud.

Q: 2011 You set up seven cow cloud storage, what is the relationship between ECUG and the establishment of seven cows? Now, what does ECUG mean to you and the industry as a whole?

Ecug has nothing to do with the establishment of seven cows. The only thing that is related is that ECUG is a technology conference for the cloud computing industry, with seven of them being cloud computing companies.

In today's meeting so many background, I insist ecug to technical dry-oriented, to eliminate advertising. On the one hand, the lecturer's speech content is confirmed beforehand, on the other hand if who play the pure advertisement to ban, thereafter Ecug no longer accept this person's topic. Ecug for me and the whole cloud computing industry, is the sacred occasion of technical exchanges, through exchanges to promote common progress in the industry.

Q: What is the current stage of competition within the domestic cloud computing industry? Can you boldly predict the future direction of the cloud computing industry?

China's cloud computing is still very early in the process. Specifically, the volume of the entire cloud computing market is still very, very small. The future of cloud computing does not require my prediction, the conclusion is very clear, many people have made predictions, and everyone's opinions are very convergent.

Q: Why did you choose the "one language of the week" theme for this year's ECUG conference? What are the features of Ecug Con 2015?

Well, your question is interesting, it's the most exciting topic of the interview today. Why choose "One language a week" for a few reasons. On the one hand to make up for the Chinese without their own popular language regret, I think Qnlang (but I have been renamed in the internal Qlang, that is, Q language) has a popular gene. Qlang's position is unique: it is the companion language of the Go language. As the most convenient language to interact with the go language, when the go language becomes the fact standard of cloud computing, we can use Qlang as the auxiliary language to complete the flexible customization of the system in many situations. For example, if we use the go language to develop crawlers, we can use Qlang to customize the crawler's many strategies, how to do this I will give a demonstration in the speech.

On the other hand, most people study too utilitarian, not too much emphasis on learning basic skills, such as compiling principles. In fact, I think the principle of compiling is a very important basic knowledge. To some extent it may be that the name is not good enough, I personally prefer to call this field text processing. Text processing is a very wide range of applications, think of our actual production environment today, where do not need text processing? In the "Big data" area where we are now very hot, text processing is clearly a very important foundation.

Ecug Con 2015 from the point of view, the technology is more granular, many lecturers have chosen a very small knowledge points to start speaking, the topic thoroughly, this is a good progress. For example, Hong Qiangning only talk about the network, I only speak text processing, Liu Qi raft (interesting is etcd author Li rang Paxos, they two of the issues together to listen must be very interesting). Compared to the very general practice of XX, such a topic you can get more dry.

Q: A lot of people have seven of cows, you and go language tightly linked together, once upon a while, many people think that seven cows choose Go language is a very bold decision. How should programmers choose the right programming language? How to learn effectively in the face of a new language?

There is no correct programming language, only the appropriate language. Choosing a language requires a decision based on your understanding of the problem domain to be solved. Of course, this matter is also related to taste, different languages actually embody the personality of the founders. Many programmers like to think of language as a camp. I personally do not have this idea, language is just a tool. There is no need because I chose go language, I think you do not choose go and I am hostile. If there is a language suitable for all fields, I will not make Qlang the new language.

The best way to learn a new language is to practice it. You use it to write several programs to solve the problems you encounter in your actual production environment, which is more effective than any other way. I remember my first C program was a doskey in a DOS environment, this thing is quite complicated, involving the editor, TSR resides in these domain knowledge, a program written down a good thousands of lines. This is my own way of learning.

Q: You once said, "Who do I know about services, more important than the programmer in my field (Job perception), and how do you develop this product-based approach to programmers?"

Some programmers only care about the technology, not the business, I think it will restrict their development, so it gives such advice. People who only care about technology will soon meet the growing ceiling. Take care of your customers, this action can be very simple. For example, I do Office software in Jinshan, like to bubble WPS User Forum, this is the technical staff close contact customers effective method. This time technology is not just technology, it is behind the living people, they have ideas, there are emotions. This way you will have a profound understanding of the product, and you will understand why the product design is made, not another form.

Q: Compared to other technology companies, even the cloud computing company, the seven bull's geek culture is very distinct, ask this cultural gene source from? You? Initial start-up team? or the industry?

The cultural genetics of the seven cows may have something to do with the style of my initial entrepreneurial team. I hope the seven bull is not so utilitarian. Although enterprises need to make money, but only want to make money in the enterprise is very not interesting. So when we do business we insist on doing our own, do what we like to do. I personally like to touch new technologies and experience the power of new technologies. As for this is geek or what, in fact, I do not care too much.

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