Tbh Go is also really nice for various local tools where you don’t want something as complex as C++ but also don’t want to depend on the full C# runtime (or large bundles when self-contained), or the same with Java.

With Wails it’s also a low friction way to build desktop software (using the heretical web tech that people often reach for, even for this use case), though there are a few GUI frameworks as well.

Either way, self contained executables that are easy to make and during development give you a rich standard library and not too hard of a language to use go a long way!

i wonder what makes go more modern than java, in terms of features.

Go is modern/faster Python.

- It was explicitly intended to "feel dynamically-typed"

- Tries to live by the zen of Python (more than Python itself!)

- Was built during the time it was fashionable to use Python for the kinds of systems it was designed for, with Google thinking at the time that they would benefit from moving their C++ systems to that model if they could avoid incurring the performance problems associated with Python. Guido Van Rossum was also employed at Google during this time. They were invested in that sort of direction.

- Often reads just like Python (when one hasn't gone deep down the rabbit hole of all the crazy Python features)