Just like Ruby. Just like pretty much every language people actually use.
> value semantics and pointers
Value semantics are one of the tricks it uses to satisfy the "but faster" part. It is decidedly its own language. But it only supports value semantics, so this is more like Ruby, which only supports reference semantics. Rust supports both value and reference semantics, so it is clearly a very different beast.
> and an `unsafe` package for performing low-level operations on those pointers
The Ruby standard library also includes a package for this.
> And in practice Go and Rust have found use in a lot of the exact same systems programming and network programming domains, as replacement languages for C.
Maybe in some cases, but the data is abundantly clear that Go was most adopted by those who were previously using Ruby and Python. The Go team did think at one point that it might attract C++ programmers, but they quickly found out that wasn't the case. It was never widely adopted in that arena. Whereas I think it is safe to say that many C++ programmers would consider Rust. Which makes sense as Rust is intended to play in the same ballpark as C++. Go was explicitly intended to be a 'faster Python'.
> but to say it's at all similar to Python or Ruby is nonsensical.
Go is most similar to Go, but on the spectrum is way closer to Python and Ruby than it is Rust. It bears almost no resemblance to Rust. Hell, even the "Rustacians'" complaint about Go is that it is nothing like Rust.
Just like Ruby. Just like pretty much every language people actually use.
> value semantics and pointers
Value semantics are one of the tricks it uses to satisfy the "but faster" part. It is decidedly its own language. But it only supports value semantics, so this is more like Ruby, which only supports reference semantics. Rust supports both value and reference semantics, so it is clearly a very different beast.
> and an `unsafe` package for performing low-level operations on those pointers
The Ruby standard library also includes a package for this.
> And in practice Go and Rust have found use in a lot of the exact same systems programming and network programming domains, as replacement languages for C.
Maybe in some cases, but the data is abundantly clear that Go was most adopted by those who were previously using Ruby and Python. The Go team did think at one point that it might attract C++ programmers, but they quickly found out that wasn't the case. It was never widely adopted in that arena. Whereas I think it is safe to say that many C++ programmers would consider Rust. Which makes sense as Rust is intended to play in the same ballpark as C++. Go was explicitly intended to be a 'faster Python'.
> but to say it's at all similar to Python or Ruby is nonsensical.
Go is most similar to Go, but on the spectrum is way closer to Python and Ruby than it is Rust. It bears almost no resemblance to Rust. Hell, even the "Rustacians'" complaint about Go is that it is nothing like Rust.