I've several times answered questions from people coming from dynamic languages that ask lots of questions about Go pointers. And the answer is, actually, since Go lacks pointer arithmetic, Go pointers work the way you're used to things working. It's the Go non-pointers that are the new bizarre thing you're not used to!

So there is definitely a common language heritage that will find the behavior of value copies in Go surprising. I came into Go with compiled language experience but I'd been exclusively in dynamic scripting languages exclusively for over a decade. I had to remind myself about this as well.