Algol 68 allows spaces in variable names and lets people use real mathematical symbols and keywords in multiple languages while still allowing representational variants for 4-, 5-, 6-, 7- and 8-bit character encodings. Go can't. Algol is used on Russian and American space craft. Go isn't. Algol has a consistent syntax good enough for the creators of Pascal, Ada, BCPL (which begat C), Simula, and Smalltalk to copy. Go uses a poor copy of C's syntax, as if C were patented and they couldn't use it. Being designed for multiprocessor systems and not limited microcomputers, Algol 68 allows parallel clauses and semaphores. Go has channels, which could be simulated in Algol using standard parallel constructs. Algol has statement expressions and nested functions like Perl and JavaScript, but unlike C (except GCC and other nonstandard variants). Go does too. So what? Go is supposed to be higher-level than C and was designed with JavaScript in mind. One can easily conclude that Go is shit, but I won't take it that far. I'd place it somewhere between a joke esolang and "something someone on /prog/ invented on a bored weekend."