[mustache_kimono]

Rob Pike actually defined it exactly this way when it was introduced -- a simpler systems language, in contrast to Java.

It's funny -- I actually just watched this video yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kj5ApnhPAE

[jjtheblunt]

Wasn't Go essentially Limbo from Bell Labs, like Rob Pike and others who moved to Google?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo_(programming_language)

[anthk]

Go is like what C++ should been long ago, from the creators of C.

Ditto with plan9/9front and the original Unix.

Now, QT/C++ is the new Motif/C, but not just for Unix, but for doing cross plataform tools everywhere.

I think the future will be shipping static Go binaries with GIO everywhere.

INB4 "disk space", today's compilers and linkers should strip away all cruft from linking by removing any useless library function.

[unfocussed_mike]

> I think the future will be shipping static Go binaries with GIO everywhere.

I would like to add a GUI to a little (very little) mysql database updater tool I have in customer hands. GIO is interesting and impressive but I am not as optimistic as you that it will develop into anything big.

[pjmlp]

Limbo + some touch of Oberon-2

[Rochus]

Is Java really a systems language?

[twic]

"systems language" and "systems programming" are terms whose interpretations vary widely across the industry. At one extreme, it means kernels, drivers, and embedded, the stuff where you need to precisely manipulate bytes with no infrastructure and minimum overhead. At the other extreme, it means any software whose users are other programs rather than people, so API services and so on. My first job was as a "systems engineer", writing database middleware (kind of) in Java.

Go is not suitable for the kernels etc kind of systems programming, but it's highly suited to the API services kind.

[Rochus]

In fact, the terms are becoming more and more diluted. "Systems Engineering" is a good example; it actually used to be a well defined discipline (see EIA-632, IEEE 1220, ISO 26702, etc.) until some non-US universities started to use the term for disciplines like system administration or computer network engineering. Similar confusion e.g. exists on the question of whether C is a high- or low-level language. The funny thing is that Go is even used as a low-resource embedded system programming language, e.g. for the micro:bit.

[codeflo]

Maybe it's a regional thing, but I don't know anyone who calls that "systems programming". I'd personally use the term "backend programming".

[mustache_kimono]

That's not what I said. Pike described golang as a systems language, and specifically contrasted it with Java. Perhaps you should watch the talk.

[Dylan16807]

> That's not what I said.

Okay, but it's a pretty reasonable interpretation, right?

"Simpler X, in contrast to Y" makes it sound like Y is a less simple X.