That's an interesting take. I don't think I've heard that complaint about go from anyone (other than you, I think, in a previous HN conversation). I've worked o

That's an interesting take. I don't think I've heard that complaint about go from anyone (other than you, I think, in a previous HN conversation). I've worked on code that had assert (Squid before the C++ rewrite, and it used assert correctly to the best of my knowledge), but I never considered it vital to the end result. Have you read about panic (https://blog.golang.org/defer-panic-and-recover https://blog.golang.org/defer-panic-and-recover)? I'm not meaning to assign you homework, as I know you know more about this than I do, I'm just curious what about assert makes it mandatory for you...panic in go does require you to write your own error check (presumably just an if, for assert-like behavior, but you could do more complex error-handling). All of your other comments are certainly valid reasons to choose C. Though I like cargo, and I suspect C would be well-served by something similar.