> "I just wanted to learn a new language"
Strong disagree. If the actual purpose was learning new things, they'd have chosen a language which does things a little differently than all of the mainstream. At least Haskell or some Lisp...
The fact they chose Go shows they care primarily about the practical side.
People want to learn a new language for reasons: perhaps they want to learn new concepts, perhaps they want a language that's faster, perhaps they want a more mature ecosystem, perhaps they want to increase their employability. There aren't people who "want to learn a new language" as their ultimate end goal.
Quite possibly! That would be consistent with my point that they chose Go for practical reasons, rather than to learn for the sake of learning, as KaiserPro was suggesting.
If you want to learn for the sake of learning, you'll learn a different paradigm, rather than rehash the same thing with a slightly different flavour. Also probably your productivity will tank.
It doesn't have to be a single variable equation. I can learn something both to learn it and for practical reasons.
The original comment I was replying to said their reason was "I just wanted to learn a new language", which is what I disagreed with.