It's all about the reader, and very little about the languages themselves. Erlang and Go are candidate "next language to learn" entries for a lot of people at

It's all about the reader, and very little about the languages themselves. Erlang and Go are candidate "next language to learn" entries for a lot of people at the moment: Go because it's new(ish), it's shiny, but it's stable enough and there are enough success stories about to convince PHB's that it's not a risk; and Erlang, because ZOMG UPTIME. They appear together because they superficially share enough that someone interested in solving problems with one is likely to be doing something that the other can take a reasonable stab at, even if it's not in the sweet spot. And they both sell themselves hard on the "concurrency" angle, despite not necessarily meaning quite the same thing when they say it.