Agreed. The original article made a good point of the language being simple (feature-light) makes it appealing for enterprises, as an alternative to Java, for building enterprise solutions. Go is easy to pick up and the language is opinionated, forcing teams to adhere to a uniform way of doing things.
I was interested in a rebuttal which would address these points. Instead, it comes across as just addressing the points in the article as an attack on Rust.
I'd definitely recommend Spacemacs. It's a starter pack for Emacs which adds layers (it's like a collection of modes), mnemonic key bindings, and other things.
If you don't mind straying off the beaten track, you should try Nadeshiko. It's available for both Ruby and Go. Be warned that it's still a work-in-progress.
As an Android and iOS developer, I would like to point out that one of the contributing factors to the lack of well-designed applications for Android is due to the lack of polish in the Android tools and the available IDE (ADT for Android, and XCode for iOS).
XCode on Mac OS X is a delightful experience, with the right tools and the right amount of control to make good applications, supported by excellent tools to optimize the look/performance. The interface builder and the simulator are quite polished and greatly reduce the effort in tweaking the UI.
However, with ADT, I spend most of my time struggling with XML layout files, and heap dumps attempting to improve the application. The interface builder became usable only with the latest version of ADT, and even-so, I often find myself dropping down into the XML often. The simulator takes a long time to load and is quite sluggish. I find it far more convenient to have the application run on the device each time. However, this implies that code-compile-run cycle takes more time on ADT than on XCode.
In conclusion, the iOS development tools help me in finishing the application quicker, leaving me enough time (and providing me better tools) to polish the interface further.
As a long term Windows (and Mac) user, I disagree with the part about Windows. Windows 7 is quite polished and I haven't had to deal with spyware in years (of using Windows XP / Windows Vista). Yes, Mac OS X is quite polished and has good workflow elements (expose, stacks, etc.) but so does Windows (tiling, maximizing, jump-list, etc.) .
As an Android (and iOS) developer, I would like to point out that one of the contributing factors to the lack of well-designed applications for Android is due to the lack of polish in the Android tools. XCode on Mac OS X is a delightful experience, with the right tools and the right amount of control to make good applications, supported by excellent tools to optimize the look/performance. However, with ADT, I spend most of my time struggling with XML layout files, and heap dumps attempting to improve the application.
Nowadays, more and more Indian parents seem to be receptive of "unconventional" career choices. Not saying that it's common, or that most don't push their kids towards engineering/medicine, but the situation seems to have improved over the last decade or two. However, you still hear tragic tales of kids who were forced into a field in which they hold no interest.
I was interested in a rebuttal which would address these points. Instead, it comes across as just addressing the points in the article as an attack on Rust.