But given the last paragraph, I don't think that's the most likely interpretation.

And it's still a terrible way to judge languages without a lot more context. All langauges have gotchas that fit into 3-5 lines. Python's got a pretty decent set: https://www.google.com/search?q=python%20gotchas It's still a good language.

And let me be very clear: I'm not "defending" Go here... I quite like both Python and Go. I've got no trouble saying Python is incrementally easier than Go when it comes to dealing with strings (but both are beat by Perl). (Especially since the incremental advantage comes at a stiff performance price. Sometimes that's fine, sometimes that's not.) I'm specifically saying as computer language polyglot, this metric for measuring languages is terrible. It's a rationalization, not a rational argument.