> Pike, I believe [...], claimed something to the effect that new grads with limited exposure to real-world codebases were able to understand existing projects

> Pike, I believe [...], claimed something to the effect that new grads with limited exposure to real-world codebases were able to understand existing projects written in Go more quickly than in other languages at Google. I have seen that message distilled down into "Go is simple to read." Yeah, it was Pike, and I have also seen it distilled (in bad faith) into "Go is a primitive language for inexperienced programmers, so it's beneath me to touch it". And yes, it is easier to write and read compared to other languages (old and new), but it does have some concepts that you should follow to write "idiomatic" Go code, e.g. don't throw panics as liberally as you would throw exceptions in other languages, use composition and interfaces where you would use inheritance in other languages etc. But I'm afraid people who have been indoctrinated with disregarding Go as "simple", but want to try it nevertheless (or are forced to use it), won't take the time to get into these details, and will see their preconceived opinions confirmed...