Even though I'm not a fan of go myself, it does work well for small, simple utilities - it's lightweight, fast, and compiles to self-contained executables, with no dependency on a runtime like Node.js, Python, or a JRE.

There are some other languages that have similar benefits, but go is the most popular and trendy. Rust could fill a similar niche but GC is very nice and Rust definitely has a higher learning curve.

I haven't used Go much but I've gotten the impression that tooling is very good, it's easy to create a self-contained executable and startup time is low. All this while the language itself aims for simplicity and doesn't include a plethora of features rarely used or needed creating an almost python-like simplicity.

I can't be the only one. I just don't see a lack of features being a feature.

You can easily statically link most languages by passing switches to the linker.

Python like simplicity is a far stretch. Golang basically just C with co routines and some of the annoying syntax cleaned up.

Lack of features hasn't stopped C from being an extremely useful and prolific language.

Your last sentence, to me, reads as a pro rather than a con. C + coroutines - bad_syntax = Great language to me.

Mind you, I don't use Go in a professional setting, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

...only in the HN bubble. Most of the hyped stuff stays around a couple of years and dies.