[disclosure: i'm the author of the above] opinions differ, I know, on the performance (e.g. https://twitter.com/derekcollison/status/245530906067095553), but ultimately you're correct that Go represents a compromise. it won't offer the performance of the lower level languages, nor the flexibility of the dynamic alternatives, but the adoption we're seeing is generally people who are willing to live with those compromises in return for a mix of the aspects to low level and high level languages they like.