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Comment by dschobel | Hacker News Reader

Is this language significant for any reason other than sharing a name with Google's new language?

Obscure languages are like art in someone's attic. It could be a Van Gogh, or a child's finger painting. Valid answers to your question include "To whom?" and "Not yet (if ever)."

Signed, an obscure language writer

Well that's just my point. The only notoriety this language has is because of a naming clash, not for any legitimate technical merit.

Its notability is in that it existed well before Google's Go, and so latter would've been better off selecting a different name.

There are several languages that have great similarity in names and some only differ by a character or few characters: C, C++, C#, Cω, Ch; X++, XL, XSL; Go, Go!, Goo.

So why again should Google make the name change?

A standard for trademarks is risk of confusion; as the "!" is not pronounced (or typically indexed), the collision between 'Go!' and 'Go' is much stronger than the others you list.

If the 'Go!' creators had any hope for using that name on a series of offerings (tools, books, etc.), they have to object to Google's use, to retain the presumptive rights they'd established so far via use.

"'Go!' pronounced 'Go bang'"?

What makes you think that's the recommended pronunciation?

Notably, the word 'bang' does not appear in the book, "Let's Go!", so it is unlikely to be the author's preferred pronunciation:

http://books.google.com/books?ei=50f7Ssn3LpOilQTelvTyDg&...

Yes, I'm starting an internet company called "Yahoo", which shouldn't cause any confusion with that other company, "Yahoo!", widely known as "Yahoo Bang". Right, give me a break. :)

But somehow not notable enough to have a wikipedia page until today.

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