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The word Go is far too overloaded in the English Language, and the difference is not always clear from context.

This title could easily have refferred to the correct meaning of 5 weeks with the programming language Go, 5 weeks playing and studying the game Go, or in a slightly colloquial usage, 5 weeks of constantly doing things and going.

And those are just the meanings that make sense in this context. It is also a verb with a wide variety of (related) meanings and forms a command part of a command in multiple computer languages (T-SQL uses Go, goto is infamous in Basic, etc).




Yeah, the name is unfortunate. There's actually another programming language called Go! as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go!_%28programming_language%29

It's not the only one. Try Googling for "Processing" and getting relevant programming language results.


Worse than the ambiguity of reading, the language is nigh ungooglable. Some queries work, but less clear-cut ones get swamped by pages that just happen to include the word "go." You can substitute "golang," but then you miss all the pages that only refer to it as "Go."


Why is it actually called "Go"? The official FAQ just has a snarky response. http://golang.org/doc/go_faq.html#What_is_the_origin_of_the_... Is it really just short for "Google"?

When I searched for "why is golang called go" Google actually suggests I change "golang" to "google" which is kind of funny.


I think it's a play on the word "Co" derived from "coroutine" which is the basis for concurrency in Go (which calls them Goroutines)


Indeed, go is a keyword in the language, for launching said "goroutines".


It would be helpful to everyone if we made it a habit to always refer to the GO language as GoLang (Instead of just sometimes). It's still quick and easy to say while also being much more specific.




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