You shouldn't be offended that Rob Pike thinks he's a much more advanced programmer than your average programmer.
He is.
Whatever his motivations, he created a very productive language. As it turns out, even advanced programmers benefit from having a simple language when it comes to getting practical work done.
> As it turns out, even advanced programmers benefit from having a simple language when it comes to getting practical work done.
I'm making this point quite tongue in cheek however...
By that logic why do programmers hate Visual Basic so much? At least VB6 was very much a "simple language" relative to other things around at the time (less so with VB.net/C#).
A lot of the arguments people are making here (less is more essentially, and clear syntax wins over complexity even at the cost of efficiency) then VB6 should be something we're modelling modern languages off of, but it is not...
PS - Remember I am not being literal here. VB6 had some issues both then and now. I am not really comparing Go to VB6, I am comparing the arguments made in support of Go to arguments that could be made in support of VB6.
There's a difference between being "simple" and "brain-dead". C, for example, is very simple, simpler than Go, even, but you can't compare it to VB6 either. Your comparison is disingenuous at best.
Simplicity is a good thing. It's a virtue. It's part of what made UNIX a success. It's not something to shun or avoid.
Adding features adds complexity and complexity is not free.
Notice how the industry still has't jumped ship whole-sale to Haskell?
> Simplicity is a good thing. It's a virtue. It's part of what made UNIX a success. It's not something to shun or avoid.
It seriously depends what you're doing. As someone put Haskell recently "all the possibilities of advanced algebra combined with all the clarity of advanced algebra".
Simplicity is only a real success if it doesn't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
> Adding features adds complexity and complexity is not free.
And taking away features is free ? Why aren't you programming in LISP then ?
Where did you get the idea that Haskell is a complex language? The core language is just 6 or 7 different expressions, everything else is syntactic sugar - it is in fact much simpler than C.
One of the reasons it's not widely adopted is that the features that programmers take for granted, like built-in syntax for mutable variables, are missing, i.e. it's too simple.