What is the Go programming language?

Go is a programming language that was developed by Google Corporation. It is also called "Golang" - short for "Google language". It is a compiled and multithreaded language, released in November 2009, and the latest release, 1.6, dates from February 2016. One of the key figures involved in the creation of Go is Rob Pike, a well-known developer of programming languages ​​as well as operating systems, currently working at Google. Speaking at one of the conferences, he noted that the Go language is an attempt to adopt the best aspects of such languages ​​as C ++ and Java.

In this article, we will try to understand how popular the Go language is, whether it has development prospects, and what the programmers think about it.

Application of Golang

The Go language was developed as a language for creating various high-performance programs, but most programmers agree that it is best suited for creating web applications (as a back-end). At the same time, Go provides opportunities to write other projects, for example, Docker, InfluxDB, and Kubernetes. The use of the Go language is limited to three main areas: network software, console utilities, and the backend.

One of the distinguishing features of the language is the original system of types: the language lacks imitation (one of the principles of object-oriented programming). Go also uses abbreviated variable definition syntax and anonymous function syntax.
Another feature of this language is parallelism, which consists of the fact that any function can be performed simultaneously with another.

Since Go is one of the young programming languages, there are regular discussions about the feasibility of its use.

Pros of the Go language

The Go language has several positive features highlighted by programmers who write in it.

Firstly, it is its simplicity. The Go language was developed as a replacement for C: its high performance is almost comparable to the C language, but the simpler syntax makes it possible to develop programs much faster (for example, as in Python). At the same time, many developers learn this language after Python or PHP or use two languages ​​​​in conjunction (Python / Go and PHP / Go). The simplified syntax makes it easier to write your code and read code written by other programmers, which is especially important in teamwork. This feature of Go, in turn, leads to another important fact: the quick mastering of Go allows you to shift your attention from learning the language itself to learning programming in general.

Programmers constantly compare the Go language with other languages: in its favor is the fact that, for example, there are 67 keywords in PHP and only 25 in Go.

Here it is necessary to make a digression and say that the desire to create a simple programming language was not born by Google developers by chance: at first, they conceived of Go as a quickly researched language that can be easily learned by several not-very experienced programmers to later write something together application This is why some consider Go a language suitable for large corporations, where many different people will be involved in product development. As already mentioned above, the simple and clear syntax leads to the fact that Go programmers do not need to introduce any other standards, notations, or comments - they will understand each other's code perfectly without this. Go's verbosity pleases some developers and frustrates others, but it's what makes Go code so easy to read.

Therefore, some companies (for example, CrowdStrike) deliberately switch from other programming languages ​​to Go to more easily expand the pool of their developers in the future.

Second, Go has a large number of libraries, thanks to which it is possible to perform almost any given task. A lot can be implemented using only the standard Go library, which is easy to read and has good quality and speed. Effective interaction with C language libraries deserves special attention; some note that the Go libraries are just wrappers over the C libraries.

Third, Go is a compiled language in which you can quickly write the desired program. Go has the same strict static typing as Pascal, but at the same time, it has a much more applied nature (and this makes it kindred to Python). Here it is necessary to note the high performance of Golang, which is typical for compiled languages. Cross-platform compatibility is also much easier in Go.

One cannot fail to note the clear focus of the language: unlike PHP, which is used to write large projects, Go is more intended for small services that must be implemented quickly and that must be extremely reliable (so-called robust software).

Deploying a Go application also looks much easier than deploying an application written in the PHP programming language. By programming in Go, you can create artifacts for all operating systems or processor architectures without having to install Go on the servers you use.

The syntax of Go may be unfamiliar to those who have programmed in PHP or Python before. If you look at Go code compared to PHP, Go doesn't have objects or classes, but it does have a structure, or rather a type, that contains named fields.

Another reason why Go is gaining more and more popularity is the availability of go fmt, a tool that helps standardize code. And using go vet will help you find possible problems in the code. In other words, the authors of the Go language tried to simplify the task of developing applications in this language as much as possible, especially for beginners.

That is why many currently consider Go to be one of the best programming languages ​​and advise not only students but also schoolchildren to learn it. By the way, there was already such a precedent: a teacher taught several 11-year-old students to write and understand code at such a level that they were able to write a Mandelbrot fractal generator. And most importantly, it took him only 12-13 hours!

Cons of the Go language

The negative side of Go is often called its current low prevalence - indeed, many more common programming languages ​​are used to perform most tasks. Does this mean that God is not worth learning? Not at all. Many corporations use the Go language in their development. First of all, it is, of course, Google Inc., as well as Basecamp, BBC Worldwide, Canonical, DigitalOcean, Dropbox, eBay, Yahoo, and many other companies around the world. Therefore, this programming language has prospects. Of course, Go programmers may be less in demand than, for example, PHP developers, but the competition is lower, which means that the chance of finding an interesting and well-paid job is higher.

Those who try to guess the prospects of the Go language also talk about another minus, which is the opposite of the previous point: due to the ease of the language, and therefore the low threshold of entry, the number of people programming in Go will grow exponentially, while the quality code and the projects themselves will leave much to be desired. A similar situation happened at the beginning of the 21st century with PHP, when a lot of novice programmers began to write in this language, who are not too worried about the functionality of their code (and are ready to receive a small fee for their work). The main difference between PHP and Go at the moment is that PHP has become a full-fledged language with a rich infrastructure and many frameworks, without knowledge of which you are unlikely to find a good job. Go is positioned as a simple language.

Questions are often raised by the type system, the lack of generics, operator overloading, the ability to expand keywords, and much more. Of course, Go is not a perfect language, and when you first get to know it, someone may not like the differences from the programming language they are more familiar with.