Go is still not good

I worked briefly on extending an Go static site generator someone wrote for a client. The code was very clear and easy to read, but difficult to extend due to the many rough edges with the language. Simple changes required altering a lot of code in ways that were not immediately obvious. The ability to encapsulate and abstract is hindered in the name of “simplicity.” Abstraction is the primary way we achieve simple and easy to extend code. John Ousterhoust defined a complex program as one that is difficult to extend rather than necessarily being large or difficult to understand at scale. The average Go program seems to violate this principle a lot. Programs appear “simple” but extension proves difficult and fraught.

Go is a case of the emperor having no clothes. Telling people that they just don’t get it or that it’s a different way of doing things just doesn’t convince me. The only thing it has going for it is a simple dev experience.

I find the way people talk about Go super weird. If people have criticisms people almost always respond that the language is just "fine" and people kind of shame you for wanting it. People say Go is simpler but having to write a for loop to get the list of keys of a map is not simpler.