>>What's wrong with Java? Everything is wrong with Java yet the JVM is an amazing feat. Java makes doing the simplest things ten times more convoluted. If you like the JVM then http://code.google.com/p/jgo/

>> The code sample on that page shows there are no braces in the if evaluation statements.

This is just Go's style but look you can still use braces. http://play.golang.org/p/_j7r6GB-ZN