I love that the Go project takes compatibility so seriously. And I think taking Hyrum's Law into account is necessary, if what you're serious about is compatibility itself.

Being serious about compatibility allows the concept of a piece of software being finished. If I finished writing a book twelve years ago, you could still read it today. But if I finished writing a piece of software twelve years ago, could you still build and run it today? Without having to fix anything? Without having to fix lots of things?

> Sure, but now that there's a "correct" way to do this, you don't get to complain that the hacky thing you did needs to keep being supported.

But that's the whole point and beauty of Go's compatibility promise. Once you finish getting something working, you finished getting it working. It works.

What I don't want, is for my programming platform to suddenly say that the way I got the thing working is no longer supported. I am no longer finished getting it working. I will never be finished getting it working.

Go is proving that a world with permanently working software is possible (vs a world with software that breaks over time).