What's the reference speed for golang or generally a quick compiler on contemporary hardware? My own experimental non-optimizing compiler compiles >1M lines per second, and it's not even optimized or multithreaded. Currently quite happy about that :-)
Turbo Pascal 5.5 had an advertised compilation speed of 34 000 lines/minute, on 1989's hardware.
http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/20803
So something like PC 386 running MS-DOS 4.x, real mode with 640KB, eventually 1MB, if making use of highmem.
So excuse me for not being that amazed with Go's compilation speed achievements. :)