Please don't mistake any of this as defense of Java, I think the Java language is an inexpressive slog (though for my money superior to Go, the lack of generics really is that much of a problem when you write modular and composable code where the HTTP server is not the IPC layer). I use Scala or JRuby when I use the JVM, except when I need to know exactly what the compiler is going to be spitting out, like when writing performance-sensitive code. This is rare, and I think the last time I wrote any Java at all was in a Google interview where they wanted me to juggle byte buffers. I use Ruby for things I don't care about or where a type system actively works against me. I use Scala for things I do care about or where a type system can help me. I use C++ for things where a garbage collector is antithetical to my purposes. (I have some hope that Rust will be a good candidate to replace both of the latter.)

Though, food for thought: I have written a fairly decent amount of Java in the past, and in what I would consider "modern practice" it has very little to do with XML. With Play, Dropwizard, and similar, you have no obligation to put up with something like Spring herpderp anymore. Or even Maven; SBT or Gradle are fine.

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Anyway--what grinds my gears, and why I posted at all, is that I have noticed in the Go community--not, I hasten to mention, enneff, as he said I think he and I are probably more in the space place than not--a really weird unwillingness to credit other environments for anything, whether from stubbornness or ignorance. If I can speculate--and I can--I think that comes from two places. I think one is the origination of many Go advocates being Python and Ruby, which are both former new-hotness ecosystems that themselves don't encourage breadth or depth in the programming languages space; in the Ruby community at least Java is often held as this inscrutable "enterprise" thing that can't possibly have any real benefits, and I feel like that's leaked into Go. The other is the cultural origination of Go in Plan 9--Keith Wesolowski's views on the second-system effects of Plan 9 and the epistemic closure and cult-of-personality effect of its developers and community are good ones and I don't need to repeat them here.

Right now, to me, Go is a mishmash of Java 1.3 and Java 1.4, right down to the overuse of green threads and the too-simple type system that forces you to trade safety when you want code reuse. And that's totally fine for people who like it. But it's nothing special, and the breathless hype around it from people who plainly haven't gotten their hands dirty with what came before makes me want to boil my head. Or their heads. After all, I like my head.