There are "I've used Go for a week and here are my strong opinions on it!" posted to reddit (and elsewhere) every week.
Frankly, it's just tiring; especially as a lot of the same points and misconceptions are repeated. Some points are valid, but it's repetitive at best. It would be like discussing Python's significant whitespace with inexperienced Python programmers every week. Sure, it's quirky and arguably not a good idea, but the discussion had been done a few times already.
Turns out that filtering stuff that uses "golang" instead of "Go" is actually a pretty good heuristic for determining if an article is worth reading. Is it perfect? Of course not; it's a heuristic.
Reading your article, this is exactly the sort of "been there, discussed that" kind of example. Your article isn't bad – I think it's mostly on-point – but it's also pretty much a repeat of what many others have said/discussed.
> I started using Go in 2008, but I get your point.
Yeah, it's an imperfect heuristic. I didn't intend it as a remark about you or your article in particular (I had added a sentence about that in my previous comment, but it must have gotten lost in the editing).
> it would have been better if they'd just said nothing.
Yes, I agree. "If you can't say it nice, then it's probably best to not say anything at all". I thought it would just be helpful to explain some of the frustrations that are (probably) behind the comment.
Such putdowns are a regular occurrence in Golang-nuts (ironically, the Go team has named their own/list forum "golang-nuts" despite that "not being the name of the language").
"golang" is the official disambiguation, so it's factually incorrect to call people out for using that term. I don't follow that mailing list particularly closely, but I've not seen anything like this in the threads I have perused. To the extent that these things happen, the community should address this behavior.
> "golang" is the official disambiguation, so it's factually incorrect to call people out for using that term.
I don't think "factually incorrect" is warranted. It's factually correct that the language is called Go. And while "golang" is a useful alternative for searchability and where "go" is taken, it is still a valid criticism to request using "Go" in natural language and prose. As for "official disambiguation", I'd say the most official thing said on the topic is this FAQ entry, which is quite clear on the matter: https://tip.golang.org/doc/faq#go_or_golang
(not saying Brad's comment isn't abrasive or rude. But it's not "factually incorrect")
The language maintainers regularly and consistently use "golang" as a disambiguation:
* golang.org
* github.com/golang
* Twitter @golang and #golang
* golang-nuts
In this context, it seems pretty "official" and the rebuke "factually incorrect" or at least the rebuke applies equally to the maintainers.
That said, it was a single wayward comment and it is (in my experience) out of character. I want to acknowledge that it was rude and validate the person who was wrongly rebuked; I explicitly don't want to pick on anyone nor tempt the Internet to pile on.
There were 22 comments, and the one from the Go developer was (and I quote):
"Tempted to stop reading after the first word in the article. (The language isn't called Golang)"