Quite rightly, too! It's annoying for beginners, but you quickly see the utility in the if err != nil {} approach, or 'sad path' approach after a few years of using Go in production. You learn to love it! To be honest, there's very little I'd add to the Go language, if anything. It's very unique that most Go developers share that view of a language. With Javascript, for example, I can't wait for 'new stuff', I think that's sometimes symptomatic of a broader dissatisfaction.