The "Pascal-like" elements are the contribution of Robert Griesemer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Griesemer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Griesem

The "Pascal-like" elements are the contribution of Robert Griesemer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Griesemer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Griesemer), who studied in Zurich and is also a co-creator of Go. The syntax has the curly braces and other C-family elements to appear more familiar (plus nobody really wants to write "begin ... end" all the time), but the declaration syntax is also Pascal-style ("x int" instead of "int x"). What reminded me most of Pascal when I first saw it was the ":=", but it has a different meaning in Go than in Pascal. ...and "really famous veteran language designers" wouldn't become famous veterans if they wouldn't learn something along the way.