Rob Pike — What We Got Right, What We Got Wrong | GopherConAU 2023

Photo by Cris Tagupa on Unsplash

original youtube video

Rob Pike, in his talk at GopherConAU 2023, reflects on the 14th anniversary of the open-source project Go. He discusses what went right and wrong in the development of Go and its impact on the programming community. Here’s a structured summary of the key takeaways.

Introduction

• Rob Pike thanks Katie and Chewy for the honor of presenting the closing talk at GopherConAU 2023.
• Go was launched as an open-source project 14 years ago.

What Went Wrong

• Go’s original goal was not to impose a new process, but to enable developers.
• Challenges included slowness, errors from dependencies, and issues in deployment and testing.
• Lack of clarity about Go’s true goals initially.
• Early issues with deployment and testing.
• The difficulty of attribution for Go Gopher art and licensing.

What Went Right

• Go’s compatibility guarantee allowed programmers to work on various platforms.
• Focus on compatibility prevented variant libraries.
• The Go command made a significant impact.
• Automated formatters with a standard format.
• Choosing goroutines and CSP for concurrency.
• Go’s concurrency model simplified many problems.
• Interfaces played a crucial role in Go’s success.
• Go’s dependency management and integrated tools.
• Go’s support for generics (recently introduced).
• Self-hosting the Go compiler.
• Transition to open source and community involvement.
• Effective package management and import path.
• Documentation and examples are vital.
• Deployment of Go code directly from web pages.
• Continued community growth and participation.
• Evolving Go for the future, with a focus on compatibility and improvements.
• Rob Pike’s personal reflections and thoughts on Go’s journey.

Q&A Session

• Rob Pike answers questions about Go’s success, the Go Gopher’s design, concurrency, generics, and more.

Rob Pike’s talk emphasizes Go’s journey, highlighting both its successes and lessons learned along the way. It has become a significant language with a vibrant community, thanks to its compatibility, simplicity, and focus on practicality.