Yes, I still remember the days where each compiler had its own linker, optimized for the specific language semantics.

Using the system linker means throwing away those benefits, in name of lowest common denominator.

Go (well, its main compiler, not gccgo) is one of the few languages that does everything by itself. It's awesome. I can just tell it to compile to FreeBSD/arm on a Darwin/amd64 box and it will just fucking do it!

System linkers are a UNIX thing.

On the majority of other OSes, each programming language used to have its own linker.

This is why although I dislike some of Go's decisions, I am quite supportive of its uptake.

- Bostraped language, with very few dependencies on C

- Runtime library makes direct use of syscalls, instead of taking the easy way and depend on libc

- It has its own linker

- Despite the GC hate and the whole discussion what is "systems programming", people are indeed slowly using for such purposes