[weinzierl]

From my vantage, pointers without arithmetic are typically called references, as opposed to "true" pointers. I did not mean it in a derogatory way, both have their place and Go is a great language even (or maybe despite) without what I would call "true" pointers.

[pjmlp]

From CS point of view, references are pointers that you can't get the underlying value behind them.

Being able to do arithmetic is orthogonal to that.

In fact check a language like D, C#, Swift, with references, pointers, and pointers with arithmetic.

[trealira]

The fact that, in Go, you can have pointers to pointers, and reassign pointer variables like any other, would imply, IMO, that pointers are first-class values, and so they are true pointers, even without being able to pointer arithmetic with them.