What I remember from the time was that C and C++ was everywhere, and Java was this weird new thing with a bunch of promises that ran slowly (because the JIT wasn't standard until later). There were a lot of people who were dismissive of Java, which was stupid, and there are a lot of people today who are dismissive of Go, which doesn't make sense to me either.
Among the languages that came in last 10 years Go is most popular with exception of maybe Swift.
So compare to marketing juggernaut Java with billions sunk in by leading enterprise vendors Go is nowhere. But among non corporate driven language Go is definitely on top.
Go is indeed one of the most popular of the last 10 years, but I don't think it's the most popular one. Swift is way ahead (because of the iOS walled garden), and Typescript is probably more popular than Go (or at least in the same ballpark).
> But among non corporate driven language Go is definitely on top.
Go, «non corporate driven», really ? OK it's not «corporate-driven» like Java, but I don't think anyone would be using Go if Google wasn't behind it. I really think the impact of marketing in Go's success is bigger than its value-proposition (I'm not saying that Go doesn't have a value-proposition, I'm just arguing that marketing played a really big role in its adoption). Consider for instance the microscopic mindshare that Pony[1] has, despite being «Go from the 21th century» with a sound type system and a data-race-free concurrency model.
Pony is also pre-1.0, and it doesn't look much like Go to me.
Ouch, the lack of historical accuracy of your comment is painful. Just a few points :
- Sun Microsystem was founded in 1982, it's far from being a dot-com start-up.
- Java was already ubiquitous by 2000, it was embedded in your phones, your credit cards, in your browsers thanks to applets etc.
- in fact it did replace COBOL or C++ for a wide number of applications, not everywhere but it still had a enormous impact on the industry. Netscape even went as far as re-implementing their whole browser in Java[1]. It was a bad idea, but that gives you an idea of the revolutionary impact Java had.
Go is nowhere near where Java was in 2000, by several orders of magnitude. It's not a criticism of Go, I don't even think we'll ever have a language as popular as Java in that time, because in the 90s there was a massive window of opportunity for a language that was at the same time : safe, portable, and licence-free.
[1]: https://www.cnet.com/news/netscape-sharpens-javagator-plans/