To be honest, I feel a lot of people are missing the point of Go, and I think none of the points made are important. The single most important thing about Go is it's simplicity:
For me it is a language that feels like a hybrid between a scripting language and a 'real' programming language. Simple syntax with some powerful, easy to use features, impressive library support for being only a few years old, but compiles (static) to native code.
That fills a gap that Haskell and Rust don't, These more advanced languages sacrifice simplicity for an attempt to be perfect. Go makes the clear statement of being simple above everything else.
Give an average python/ruby/<insert scripting language here> coder the link to "A 30-minute Introduction to Rust" ( http://doc.rust-lang.org/intro.html ), and he/she will give you a strange look and not understand half of what is being said there. In the end they'll conclude it's not something for them. Give it to a C++ coder and he'll say 'oh nice, but I can do that in C++, use Boost<whatever>, because C++ is superior to all!' - and that coder there is their target audience. A decent C++ coder will have invested too much time to learn another language to solve problems he already learned to solve for himself in C++ a long time ago. Rust might be better and would make his life easier in a lot of cases, but still the majority won't make the switch.
Give the same <insert scripting language here> coder the Go documentation, and he'll be off in no time, writing better code than he used to do, producing a single binary which will not be an absolute nightmare to deploy. And that's what every coder of scripting languages has always dreamed of - being able to make programs in a simple straight-forward way, with as little dependencies as possible, without needing a <language X> runtime. On top of that, Go makes cross-compilation dead-easy.
There are a LOT more <insert scripting language here> coders out-there than there are C++ programmers. Giving them Go makes running the stuff they write more efficient confronts them with Git/source control (you would be surprised how many don't know about SCM)
I agree with you partially, but OTOH Go, I don't know exactly why, feels pragmatic and ready for production.
Maybe its because of the creators, Google backing it, or the promise that 1.x remains compatible, or that it ships with a standard library good enough to write useful server stuff.
So despite all those flaws (I miss generics the most), I think it will become the static Python replacement for the next 10 years.
(Its like how Factor handled 3rd party contributions: one library for some particular task is blessed and shipped w/ Factor. Of course it doesn't scale..)
For me it is a language that feels like a hybrid between a scripting language and a 'real' programming language. Simple syntax with some powerful, easy to use features, impressive library support for being only a few years old, but compiles (static) to native code.
That fills a gap that Haskell and Rust don't, These more advanced languages sacrifice simplicity for an attempt to be perfect. Go makes the clear statement of being simple above everything else.
Give an average python/ruby/<insert scripting language here> coder the link to "A 30-minute Introduction to Rust" ( http://doc.rust-lang.org/intro.html ), and he/she will give you a strange look and not understand half of what is being said there. In the end they'll conclude it's not something for them. Give it to a C++ coder and he'll say 'oh nice, but I can do that in C++, use Boost<whatever>, because C++ is superior to all!' - and that coder there is their target audience. A decent C++ coder will have invested too much time to learn another language to solve problems he already learned to solve for himself in C++ a long time ago. Rust might be better and would make his life easier in a lot of cases, but still the majority won't make the switch.
Give the same <insert scripting language here> coder the Go documentation, and he'll be off in no time, writing better code than he used to do, producing a single binary which will not be an absolute nightmare to deploy. And that's what every coder of scripting languages has always dreamed of - being able to make programs in a simple straight-forward way, with as little dependencies as possible, without needing a <language X> runtime. On top of that, Go makes cross-compilation dead-easy.
There are a LOT more <insert scripting language here> coders out-there than there are C++ programmers. Giving them Go makes running the stuff they write more efficient confronts them with Git/source control (you would be surprised how many don't know about SCM)