Did you look at other systems-implementation languages, such as DEC's Bliss

I'm curious as to what prior languages were used as foundations for GO. For example, I really liked Digital's Bliss language for low level operating system hacking. Like GO, it was utterly consistent. Sadly, unlike GO, it has a lot of syntactic cruft that make it look forbidding.

In Bliss, you could do anything. I thought that its syntax and power was greatly superior to C, but of course C took over the world.

Hi Pat,

Go's provenance is described here Go's Ancestors.

I think that C++, Objective-C and Java (indirectly via C++) are all attempts to be "better Cs". Go is another attempt: and IMO the first successful one.