[oshepherd]

The people who call Go a systems programming language are fundamentally misguided. It is an applications programming language under any reasonable definition.

[sergiosgc]

You know that "the people who call Go a systems programming language" are its authors, do you not?

[haberman]

Yes, but they are also the ones being surprised that Go is cannibalizing Python, not C or C++.

They are smart guys, so I can only conclude that "systems programming" means something different to them than it does to many other systems programmers.

To me, "no imposed GC" is a non-negotiable element of being a systems programming language. So I am far more drawn to Rust than Go.

[coolsunglasses]

They actually dropped the "systems" bit on the home page because people told them it wasn't a systems language.

"Systems" in Rob/Ken's time was services/servers - what we call applications these days.

[coldtea]

You know that they retracted that line from the Go introduction text on the webpage, don't you?

And of course, them being Go's authors and them being wrong on characterizing it, is in no way contradictory.