I think one of the biggest differences is that Go has only value types and references thereto (including the builtin data structures, which are basically just f

I think one of the biggest differences is that Go has only value types and references thereto (including the builtin data structures, which are basically just fat pointers). Even if Java gets value types, there will be a huge and useless value/class dichotomy as in C#. But there are dozens of other misfeatures in Java, such as protected/final/first-class-constructors/explicit-interfaces/etc. And this is just the language--the tooling is even worse (and no, a huge, fragmented ecosystem of kitchen-sink tools is not "better" than a few, simple, purpose-made tools). All that said, I have a lot of criticism for Go as well, especially as a language. I just can't see Java being on par with Go, even with generics. Of course Go has more than a decade of hindsight that Java didn't have (or at least Java was in too deep by then to make the requisite changes).