I’ve been developing software professionally for 20 years now, but my coding journey began over 30 years ago on a Tandy 1000 in GW-BASIC. During that time, I’ve used many languages and Go is by far my favorite. You can find the full list of languages I’ve learned on my about page.
My love of Go comes down to its simplicity and being a batteries-included language. I’m tired of the sprawling JavaScript ecosystem. I just want basic utilities in a standard library I can trust.
Among the tech YouTubers I follow, one of my favorites is ThePrimeagan. I was surprised when he discussed his search for a new language for 2025 and remarked that Go isn’t a great language. He acknowledged that Go is an extremely productive language, capable of building almost anything. Watch his full video below.
I was not surprised he doesn’t enjoy Go. There are programming languages, like Java, that I don’t enjoy. What surprised me was his acknowledgment of Go’s productivity despite his apparent lack of enjoyment in using it. It made me stop and think about what I like about Go and what I have disliked about other programming languages in the past. What do I think makes a great programming language?
ThePrimeagan appears to be seeking a challenge—something new and different. He strikes me as more of a programming language enthusiast, someone who loves exploring new languages and innovative ways of building things.
When I choose a language, I’m looking for one that lets me quickly build something cool. Go is perfect for that—ideal for personal projects where productivity and simplicity matter. That’s why the first language I programmed in professionally was PHP, and while I learned others, I stuck with it until switching to JavaScript with Node.js 0.10.
I am currently learning Rust, and while I think Rust’s enums are awesome, I just don’t feel a connection to the language. It will probably be one like so many others that I learn and then never use for any projects. I am much more excited to learn Zig or Odin soon. I believe Rust was a good choice for this year as it has some really interesting concepts.