I don't think Go could have existed in 1996. It feels like a reaction to Java, in some sense. And even if it was built, exactly as it is now, in 1996, it probably would have gone no where.
"It doesn't even have object inheritance! And what do we need all these concurrency things for? Windows has only had preemptive multitasking for a year, and multi-core is still a decade away."
"It doesn't even have object inheritance! And what do we need all these concurrency things for? Windows has only had preemptive multitasking for a year, and multi-core is still a decade away."