This is old and tired. Go has a ton of features java 1.0 didn't. Hell, go has features java 1.7 doesn't (possibly 1.8, but I'm not as familiar with it).
Actually, it isn't the same argument as golang == java 1.0. It's java 1.0 had similar goals and made similar design choices that golang is making (and had similar responses from developers). In many ways this rings true. Java 1.0 and Golang do share many of the same goals.
A couple of areas where it really falls down though are that Java 1.0 lacked the emphasis on tooling which is golangs greatest strength and added a goal of "write once/run anywhere" which at the time seemed very important but now adds a lot of baggage.
Kudos. That is perhaps the best reasoning I have ever seen for this comparison. I agree totally, though I don't think most people who make the comparison are thinking along the same lines. I think they generally just mean "compiled, GC, no generics".
