Yeah, insisting on things like a variable being used will result in people using work arounds. It won't result in people not doing it.

Then, because people trust the language to police this rule, the work-arounds and debug code will get committed.

func main() {  
    test := true  
}  

Oops, golang doesn't like that.

func main() {  
    test := true  
    _ = test  
}

Perfectly cromulent code.

If they really wanted to avoid people having unused variables, they should have used a naming convention. Any variable not prefixed by "_" or "_debug_" or whatever has to be used, for example. Then block any code being checked in that still contains those markers.

reading my code after being up for 18 hours and having my eyes glaze over trying to parse the structure of my monochromatic code but then I remember Rob Pike said syntax highlighting is juvenile so I throw my head against that wall for another 3 hours

I agree that golang is being dumb when you don't even have the option to tell it that this is a testing env or something. But the thing about syntax highlighting is not the same. One is about handholding the developer so much that it makes it even more difficult to develop, and the other is a completely optional feature that is so uselful and non intrusive that even wizardly editors like emacs use it.

What's a situation where you need an unused variable? I'm onboard with go and goland being a bit aggressive with this type of thing, but I can't think of the case where I need to be able to commit an unused variable.