> Segfault" is simply Go's reporting convention for things like nil pointer hits.

Blatantly false. From Ralf’s post:

> panic: runtime error: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference [signal SIGSEGV: segmentation violation code=0x1 addr=0x2a pc=0x468863]

The panic address is 42, a value being mutated, not a nil pointer. You could easily imagine this address pointing to a legal but unintended memory address resulting in a read or write of unintended memory.