alt Hacker NewsGo was built because C++ does not scale. Anybody that's ever used a source based distro knows that if you're installing/building a large C++ codebase, better forget your PC for the day because you will not be using it. Rust also applies here, but at least multiplatform support is easier, so I don't fault it for slow build times
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lallysingh • last Tuesday at 5:58 AM
Go was made because Rob Pike didn't want to do Java.
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Go was created because Rob Pike hates C++, notice Plan 9 and Inferno don't have C++ compilers, even though C++ was born on UNIX at Bell Labs.
As for compilation times, yes that is an issue, they could have switched to Java as other Google departments were doing, with some JNI if needed.
As sidenote, Kubernetes was started in Java and only switching to Go after some Go folks joined the team and advocated for the rewrite, see related FOSDEM talk.