Reflecting on Go: What Went Right and What Went Wrong — Insights from Rob Pike

Rob Pike, the creator of the Go programming language, delivered a speech at the GopherCon AU conference in Sydney, Australia, commemorating the 14th anniversary of Go’s release on November 10, 2009. The theme of the talk was a retrospective on “What We Got Right, What We Got Wrong.”

Pike shared internal memories about the early history of Go and insights into some crucial factors during its development. He emphasized that his remarks were personal opinions and not representative of the Go team or Google.

“Go has been and continues to be a tremendous effort from a dedicated team and a vast community. So if you agree with anything I say, thank them. If you disagree, blame me, but please don’t say it out loud,” Pike stated.

He acknowledged that the assessment of a programming language’s success is subjective, citing an article from 2022 where he, along with Ken Thompson, Russ Cox, Robert Griesemer, and Ian Lance Taylor, attributed Go’s success to its focus on concurrency and parallelism, tailored for handling large workloads on multi-core processors. Pike also highlighted the success of Go’s “developer-centric philosophy” and its thriving community and contributions.

Pike reminisced about the significance of the Go gopher, the adorable mascot, as a unifying factor in the community. He praised its impact on setting the tone for community engagement — blending technical excellence with genuine fun.