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>but I believe fragmenting the community has almost always led to the overall downfall of a language

Warning, I am not a professional developer, only a mere scripter.

Aren't forks and transpiled languages sometimes a driving force? Typescript/coffeescript pushed changes in Javascript. Scala on the VM pushed changes in Java. jQuery as a DSL of javascript even pushed changes in the language.

And in all of these cases, the branch language/framework eventually becomes less relevant, but that does not take away the utility and influence they provided in their time.

So if someone imagines running a Golang fork and successfully develops the fork with new features and/or better processes and faster iteration, it may be useful even if they end up dying once and if Golang itself incorporates the changes.



With Typescript/coffeescript, there were core language improvements to the language that led to popularity in the JavaScript community. Things like types and arrow functions were welcome additions and gained adoption.

I think that a Go fork would be more like, for example, Go with text internationalisation fixed. It wouldn't be very interesting to a large part of the Go community who is using the language just fine.




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