> They may be an expert in Go, but from their writing they appear to be misunderstanding (or at least misrepresenting) how things work in other languages

Thanks for that link.

Based on reading through that whole discussion there just now and my understanding of the different ecosystems, my conclusion is that certainly people there are telling Filippo Valsorda that he is misunderstanding how things work in other languages, but then AFAICT Filippo or others chime in to explain how he is in fact not misunderstanding.

This subthread to me was a seemingly prototypical exchange there:

https://lobste.rs/s/exv2eq/go_sum_is_not_lockfile#c_d26oq4

Someone in that subthread tells Filippo (FiloSottile) that he is misunderstanding cargo behavior, but Filippo then reiterates which behavior he is talking about (add vs. install), Filippo does a simple test to illustrate his point, and some others seem to agree that he is correct in what he originally said.

That said, YMMV, and that overall discussion does certainly seem to have some confusion and people seemingly talking past each other (e.g., some people mixing up "dependents" vs. "dependencies", etc.).