4 ms·

I know folks love the gopher, but I’m a fan of this to be honest. The hand drawn gopher just looked... childish? It definitely didn’t give me the impression

I know folks love the gopher, but I’m a fan of this to be honest. The hand drawn gopher just looked... childish? It definitely didn’t give me the impression of an efficient and well put together programming language.

misterbowfinger 8y ago
yeah neither does a cockroach for a database.
- thanatos_dem 8y ago
  Yeah, but CRDB’s logo is pretty stylized and simple/clean. The hand drawn style for the gopher just didn’t work for a lot of applications. It was too detailed to use as an icon, and the lines were too thin to look good when printed.
catach 8y ago
The gopher isn't going away, though. The last pages of the brand book pdf give guidance on how to use it.
Groxx 8y ago
The gopher's in the brand book. Doesn't appear to be going anywhere.
bitwize 8y ago
The Go gopher is a redraw of Glenda, the Plan 9 bunny. Many of Plan 9's principals worked on Go, which is itself an update of Alef, Plan 9's planned systems language, before it was canned and replaced with C. I'm sure he'll still be around as a mascot. He's still on the site's main page. I really don't see the problem with him -- most commercial internet servers run a kernel with a cute penguin mascot, and many of the rest run a kernel with a cute mascot who is literally the Devil -- but I can appreciate the strategy of opening with a punchy, barebones logotype.
- cschmidt 8y ago
  Interesting, I didn't know that https://9p.io/plan9/glenda.html https://9p.io/plan9/glenda.html
- bitmapbrother 8y ago
  Was it really a redraw of the Plan 9 bunny? According to the Go website it says the gopher was created for a radio station fund raiser. About 15 years ago—long before the Go project—the gopher first appeared as a promotion for the WFMU radio station in New Jersey. Renee French was commissioned to design a T-shirt for an annual fundraiser and out came the gopher.
  - bitwize 8y ago
    Guess who also designed Glenda.
    - bitmapbrother 8y ago
      French, of course. The Gopher, however, is not a "redraw" of the rabbit.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  You forgot Inferno and Limbo.
lillesvin 8y ago
It's probably silly but I like it when logos/mascots are like that—you know, slightly helpless and not oozing of focused branding efforts. It makes me feel more certain that the language/technology is used because of its actual merits rather than its branding.

misterbowfinger 8y ago

yeah neither does a cockroach for a database.

thanatos_dem 8y ago
Yeah, but CRDB’s logo is pretty stylized and simple/clean. The hand drawn style for the gopher just didn’t work for a lot of applications. It was too detailed to use as an icon, and the lines were too thin to look good when printed.

catach 8y ago

The gopher isn't going away, though. The last pages of the brand book pdf give guidance on how to use it.

Groxx 8y ago

The gopher's in the brand book. Doesn't appear to be going anywhere.

bitwize 8y ago

The Go gopher is a redraw of Glenda, the Plan 9 bunny. Many of Plan 9's principals worked on Go, which is itself an update of Alef, Plan 9's planned systems language, before it was canned and replaced with C. I'm sure he'll still be around as a mascot. He's still on the site's main page. I really don't see the problem with him -- most commercial internet servers run a kernel with a cute penguin mascot, and many of the rest run a kernel with a cute mascot who is literally the Devil -- but I can appreciate the strategy of opening with a punchy, barebones logotype.

cschmidt 8y ago
Interesting, I didn't know that https://9p.io/plan9/glenda.html https://9p.io/plan9/glenda.html
bitmapbrother 8y ago
Was it really a redraw of the Plan 9 bunny? According to the Go website it says the gopher was created for a radio station fund raiser. About 15 years ago—long before the Go project—the gopher first appeared as a promotion for the WFMU radio station in New Jersey. Renee French was commissioned to design a T-shirt for an annual fundraiser and out came the gopher.
- bitwize 8y ago
  Guess who also designed Glenda.
  - bitmapbrother 8y ago
    French, of course. The Gopher, however, is not a "redraw" of the rabbit.
pjmlp 8y ago
You forgot Inferno and Limbo.

lillesvin 8y ago

It's probably silly but I like it when logos/mascots are like that—you know, slightly helpless and not oozing of focused branding efforts. It makes me feel more certain that the language/technology is used because of its actual merits rather than its branding.