> A key point was the use of a plain string to specify the path in an import statement, giving a flexibility that we were correct in believing would be importan

> A key point was the use of a plain string to specify the path in an import statement, giving a flexibility that we were correct in believing would be important. Wrong. Importing a string is like a touchscreen UI in a car: it's deferring the problem. It's lazy. > But we didn't have enough experience using a package manager with lots of versions of packages and the very difficult problems trying to resolve the dependency graph. No one on the team had ever used Java? Really? Maven was ~8 yeras old when Go was released. It came from previous learnings and errors with Ant. Maven did other things too that aren't necessarily relevant or necessary (eg standardized directory structure). But the dependency system was really solid even if it was verbose because it was XML. > Second, the business of engaging the community to help solve the dependency management problem was well-intentioned This feels ahistorical. It felt more like the problem wasn't understood and/or thought important. This fits in with the importing a string: it's a way of not solving the problem, of kicking the can down the street.