Go (or Golang) is definitely not the most popular programming language, but its over 10-year journey in the development world goes slowly but surely, revealing many advantages over other, more prominent, backend languages.
Having said this now is a good moment to take a closer look at Go's origins and find out why Go remains the language that programmers are willing to explore.
TL;DR
Key Features: Static typing, concurrency, and high-performance networking.
Advantages: Easy to learn, fast, cross-platform, and strong community support.
Use Cases: Ideal for backend services, cloud-native development, and modernizing infrastructure.
Go or Golang?
Let's start by addressing a common confusion about the language's name: Is it Go or Golang?
The truth is, both names are correct. Officially, the language is called Go. However, the nickname "Golang" emerged because the official website is golang.org, not go.org (which was unavailable when the language was launched). This initial confusion turned out to be beneficial, as "Golang" is more distinctive and easier to search for online compared to the more common word "Go."
Interestingly, even on social media platforms, the hashtag #golang is widely used, despite Go being the language's official name. This widespread adoption of the nickname has made it equally acceptable in most contexts.
Now that we've cleared up the naming convention, we can dig into the fascinating world of Go's ancient history and technical details.
What is Golang?
Go (Golang) is an open-source, backend programming language used for:
Server management
Web development
Cloud infrastructure setting
Command-line interfaces
Go was born out of frustration among Google developers who were struggling with the limitations of existing backend languages, particularly C++. They found C++ to be sluggish, demanding, overly complicated, and unstable, which slowed down the development process. In an era of multicore, networked machines, huge codebases, and AI-driven and cloud-native solutions, C++ was no longer the optimal choice.
In 2007, Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson, all employed at Google, set out to create a better alternative to C++. They aimed to cherry-pick the best features from other languages like Python and Ruby, combining them seamlessly into a modern, convenient form. The result was Go, a language often referred to as "C for the twenty-first century" in terms of syntax.
Key Features of Go
Go's DNA is not just a simple reincarnation of C. While syntactically similar to C, Go incorporates built-in tooling for memory safety, garbage collection, structural typing, and concurrency. Some of its main characteristics include:
Static typing and run-time efficiency (like C)
Readability and usability (like Python or JavaScript)
High-performance networking and multiprocessing
All these features contribute to Go's ultimate goal: stability.
Why Learn Go?
Easy Learning Curve: Go is one of the simplest programming languages to learn, especially if you already have experience with another language. Its simplicity is a major reason why it jumped from the 10th to the 5th most loved programming language in the 2020 StackOverflow Developer Survey.
High-Performing Applications: Go was designed for automation at a large scale, making it relatively easy to write high-performing applications.
Active Community and Good Documentation: Go has solid, easy-to-read documentation and a supportive, active community behind it, ensuring help is always available when needed.
Versatility: Go is a multipurpose language, suitable for web development, data science, cloud computing, and more. Platforms like Amazon Web Services, Kubernetes, and Google Cloud Platform all support Go.
Features of Go Language
Language Design
The language's designers intentionally aimed to keep it simple and easy to understand. The comprehensive details are presented in just a few pages, and several intriguing design choices were made with Object-Oriented support in mind. The language has a clear philosophy, advocating for an idiomatic approach to problem-solving and favoring Composition over Inheritance. In Go, the guiding principle is "Do More with Less."
Package Management
Go merges modern developer workflow of working with Open Source projects and includes that in the way it manages external packages. Support is provided directly in the tooling to get external packages and publish your own packages in a set of easy commands.
Powerful Standard Library
Go has a powerful standard library, which is distributed as packages.
Static Typing
Go is a statically typed language. The compiler not only compiles the code successfully but also ensures type conversions and compatibility. Because of this feature, Go avoids all those problems that we face in dynamically typed languages.
Testing Support
Go provides unit testing features by itself, i.e., a simple mechanism to write your unit tests parallel with your code, allowing you to understand your code coverage by your own tests. This can be easily used in generating your code documentation as an example.
Platform Independent
Go language is similar to the Java language as it supports platform independence. Due to its modular design and modularity, the code is compiled and is converted into binary form which is as small as possible and hence, it requires no dependency. Its code can be compiled in any platform or any server and application you work on.
Advantages of Go
Simple and Easy to Learn: Go's small syntax makes it easy to analyze and interpret without extensive documentation.
Agile and Versatile: Go's flexibility makes it a good solution for handling cloud projects, AI, Big Data, and standard app development.
Compiled and Fast: As a compiled language, Go is translated to machine code before execution, making it fast.
Cross-Platform Support: Go supports various integrated development environments (IDEs) and editors across Windows, Linux, and Mac.
What Is Golang Used For?
Golang’s support for concurrency makes it an excellent choice for handling bottlenecks that prevent scalability.
One particular feature of Go, goroutines, offers concurrency by allowing functions or methods to run concurrently with other functions or methods. A complimentary feature, channels, works to link goroutines together.
Backend developers can reap the most benefits from Go. Using the language, developers can handle heavy requests on the server-side with minuscule memory usage.
Many well-known companies, such as Google, Uber, Twitch, Dailymotion, Daytona and Dropbox, are currently using Go in their tech stacks.
Some Examples of Golang Applications
Distributed Network Services
Go's concurrency features, such as goroutines and channels, make it well-suited for developing network services like APIs, web servers, and mini frameworks for web applications.
Cloud-Native Development
Go's concurrency, networking features, and high portability across platforms make it an exceptional language for cloud computing. Platforms like Kubernetes and Google Cloud use Go to enhance scalability and performance.
Replacements for Existing Infrastructure
Go is used to modernize obsolete infrastructures, such as the Network Time Protocol (NTP), which relies on Go for its new version.
Utilities and Stand-Alone Tools
Go's ability to function with minimal dependencies makes it well-suited for building tooling items that can be quickly launched and packaged for redistribution, such as Daytona open source.
Conclusion
Go, with its simplicity, efficiency, and versatility, is a powerful programming language that continues to gain popularity among developers. Its unique features, easy learning curve, and active community make it an attractive choice for a wide range of applications.
Go is a powerful programming language that is here to stay. From the 2020 StackOverflow Developer Survey, it's clear that developers love Go, and its popularity is rising year by year.
Go is definitely worth your time. Now, go learn some Go.
