Gradle, when the daemon is runnning is very fast, people just often fck up their build scripts to include config-time run functionality, which is just all around a stupid thing to do.
It only ever runs tasks that actually have to be run, has integration with javac, can work in parallel, and even has cross-company build caches if needed.
Also don't forget that Java can do hot reloads with the debugger, or with tools like JRebel. Certain frameworks support it 100% and it will be much much faster than whatever go does.
