[fishywang]

>its creators explicitly said their goal was to replace C++

so nowadays when we say "c++" we mostly mean the works should be replaced by rust, but back then, it's not like that.

I would argue that go successfully replaced c++ in specific domains (network, etc.), and changed your perspective on what "c++" means.

[zozbot234]

That's nothing new, Java successfully replaced C++ in enterprise code in the mid-to-late 1990s. Because it was safe from memory bugs.

[lanstin]

Mid 2000s in my experience. And not because it was safe from memory bugs so much as safe from memory leaks. Still had plenty of NPEs.

[justinclift]

Java kind of gets around the memory leak problem by allocating all of the leak up front for the JVM. ;)

[cryptos]

I'm a JVM guy, but this is a good one :-)

[pjmlp]

NPE isn't a memory corruption bug.

[worik]

Java is safe from a class of memory bugs and leaks

It is still possible to leak resources in Java

You have to fool the GC but it is surprisingly easy to do.

[kaba0]

Those are safe.

And it’s not like Go didn’t just copy nulls (plus even has shitty initialization problems now, e.g. with make!)

[Cthulhu_]

Safer, I'd say, but it also introduced its own issues. Its type system and - maybe more importantly - its ecosystem around things like unit testing and static analysis at the time was a few leaps ahead of C++, making it a favorite for enterprise systems and codebases where getting 5 SIG stars is a badge of honor and/or requirement.

Java is easier than C++ as well, harder to mess things up. That said, Go feels easier again than Java because it got rid of a lot of cruft.