Hacker News Reader

Given who invented it, Go can be thought of as, "What C might have been if we could have done it."

Go really is in many ways more similar to early C in spirit than modern C is.

Expanding this for those not familiar with Go's history: Ken Thompson, formerly of Bell Labs and co-creator of B and Unix, was deeply involved in Go's early days. Rob Pike, also ex-Bell Labs, was also one of Go's principal designers.

I can't find a source now, but I believe Rob described Russ Cox as "the only programmer I've met as gifted as Ken." High praise indeed.

Go it's modelled after plan9'C [1-9]c = go cross compiling, and Limbo so it has a lot of sense. Both come from the same people after all. Unix->Unix8 -> Plan9 -> Go.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com