[5e92cb50239222b]

This comment pretty much sums up the idea of Go — it's a perfect language for those who haven't looked into anything else that's been available for the past fifty years. If you think that sum types is an "advanced feature" that puts additional "cognitive overhead", it may be perfect for you. I think iota puts much more overhead and adds a need to have oversight where there should be none. If your idea of less cognitive overhead if doing compiler's work for it, well, good for you. There are some exceptions among talented and well-educated developers who seem like it, I know, but those seem to be exceptions.

[maccard]

> There are some exceptions among talented and well-educated developers who seem like it, I know, but those seem to be exceptions.

I have to disagree with this (but agree with the rest of your post). The issues with go are there, but it's still a robust language with great tooling, a solid underlying ecosystem, and is actively improving. It performs pretty well, and idiomatic go is mostly transferable across projects (as opposed to say c++ where you have to pick your favourite style guide). I think it's a great tool for developers, even given its shortcomings

[philosopher1234]

I know Haskell, rust and lisp, so no, I have looked into and used these technologies in earnest. Taking the cost of complication for granted is naive.

[nicoburns]

I question the notion that sum types add complication. I would suggest that if teaching complete beginners it would be just as easy to teach them sum types as it is to teach them product types (structs/classes). A bunch of languages have classes with inheritance. Now that's complicated! But sum types? I just don't buy it.