> The comparison between GO and Java seems unfair, given they compare a primitive variable with an object... which has methods and a bunch of other things to in

> The comparison between GO and Java seems unfair, given they compare a primitive variable with an object... which has methods and a bunch of other things to increase it's size (for good reason) Nope, there's no "good reason" why java.lang.Integer is a full-blown Object with a heavyweight header and on-heap allocation. It doesn't need reference semantics, polymorphism, can't be inherited, it has a monitor but it's not terribly useful since the value is immutable, etc. The only reason why Integer is a java.lang.Object is that this is a constraint imposed by the typesystem so you can put the Integer in a collection or other kinds of code that manipulate "any object".