Do people actually care that much about languages? I mean, we're here writing English, which is a complete dumpster fire. Go is undeniable perfection compared to the horror that is English. Clearly you and I don't care that much about languages.

I expect people like Go because of its tooling (what also saves English), which was a million miles ahead of the pack when it first came out. Granted, everyone else took notice, so the gap has started to narrow.

> It feels like it fights any attempt at using it to do things optimally or quickly.

Serious question: Is that because you are trying to write code in another language with Go syntax? Go unquestionably requires a unique mental model that doesn't transfer from other languages; even those that appear similar on the surface. Because of that, I posit that it is a really hard language to learn. It is easy to get something working, but I mean truly learn it.

While every programming language requires its own mental model, Go seems to take it to another level (before reaching a completely different paradigm). I expect that is because its lack of features prevents you from papering over "misuse" like is possible in other, more featureful languages, so you feel it right away instead of gradually being able build the right mental model.

These are not directly comparable just because we use the same term to describe them.

To your second point, I wholeheartedly disagree. Go is not a difficult language to learn, nor is it particularly unique compared to the type of language it attempts to emulate. In fact I think it’s one of the easiest languages to learn if you already have experience in C-likes because of how obvious it is what it’s trying to do.

I think it is just a bad language. It’s simple to figure out how you need to use it, but it is obnoxious and tedious to do it in that way.

Toggle switches are for giving instructions to a machine. Programming languages are a higher level abstraction over the toggle switches so that the intent of the toggling can be communicated with other people. You don't just write code, run it through the machine, and then throw it away. Other people, and probably even yourself, will read what was written again and again and again. The language is very much for people first and foremost, with the side effect of also being understandable by machine.

> I think it is just a bad language.

It is – nobody is suggesting otherwise – but you didn't answer the question. Are you writing Go with Go syntax, or another language with Go syntax? Perhaps the best way to answer, if it is that you just didn't know how, is to post some sample code that you find to be obnoxious and tedious and we can see if it is that way because of Go, or if it is because you are trying to use patterns from other languages that don't fit the language.

Someone can say the German language is a bad language. But it is not the language that is bad, it is the person's perception.

When they try to evaluate German while thinking in English it is no surprise they consider it sub-standard. Germans, OTOH, are much better equipped to evaluate the German language than those who only know how to think in English.

(Full disclosure; my grandfather was German but I only know how to think in English.)

There would be no logical reason to make up some imagined situation. I am not understanding your reason for mentioning it. What is the thought process behind your thinking there to help me better understand your intent?

Or, if this is just your subtle way of saying that you've never actually written any Go code in your life and are just making this up because you read someone like it elsewhere, then fine. So be it. But that would well and truly not be useful. Given that you are seemingly here in good faith we can be sure that is not what is going on here and look forward to your reasoned response.

I don’t know what your goal is here, but it’s clearly not anything that involves a conversation.