[Lutger]

Go doesn't have any substantial innovations in the set of language features, or maybe none at all. I believe it is instead the whole of a sober and efficient toolchain that effects tedious but simple to understand and work with code, which gave it such a great appeal.

It's like a modernized C with a good implementation and out-of-the-box no-nonsense tooling, and the tricky bits left out. Nothing really new to see, but there was nothing really like it when it took off. Very utilitarian. Rust, Java, C#, C++ - those are all very 'complex' or 'bloated' in many different ways to an avid Go programmer.

I'm not promoting Go (I personally don't like it), I'm just trying to understand it's appeal and popularity and what is different about it. Quality and completeness of implementation, tooling, etc. by having a big company behind it also helps of lot of course - but it isn't sufficient.