Go is not the language we think it is

When I first started working with the Go language, my impression was that it was a better version of C. A C with strings, with better enums, and most importantly a C without a preprocessor.

All of those aspects are true, but I'm not sure that the "origin language" of Go was C.

I say this after reading Kernighan's 1981 paper "Why Pascal is not my Favorite Programming Language". In it, he lists the major deficiencies of Pascal, including types, fixed-length arrays (or the absence of variable-length arrays), lack of static variables and initialization, lack of separate compilation (units), breaks from loops, order of evaluation in expressions, the detection of end-of-line and end-of-file, the use of 'begin' and 'end' instead of braces, and the use of semicolons as separators (required in some places, forbidden in others).

All of these criticisms are addressed in the Go language. It is as if Kernighan had sent these thoughts telepathically to Griesemer, Pike, and Thompson (the credited creators of Go).

Now, I don't believe that Kernighan used mind control on the creators of Go. What I do believe is somewhat more mundane: Kernighan, working with Pike and Kernighan on earlier projects, shared his ideas on programming languages with them. And since the principal players enjoyed long and fruitful careers together, they were receptive to those ideas. (It may be that Kernighan adopted some ideas from the others, too.)

My conclusion is that the ideas that became the Go language were present much earlier than the introduction of Go, or even the start of the Go project. They were present in the 1980s, and stimulated by the failings of Pascal. Go is, as I see it, a "better Pascal", not a "better C".

If that doesn't convince you, consider this: The assignment operator in C is '=' and in Pascal it is ':='. In Go, the assignment operators (there are two) are ':=' and '='. (Go uses the first form to declare new variables and the second form to assign to existing variables.)

In the end, which language (C or Pascal) was the predecessor of Go matters little. What matters is that we have the Go language and that it is a usable language.