Go: The language of innovation
Paulo studied Information and Communication Technology and is a Software…
In the dynamic and ever-evolving universe of programming, new languages designed to meet specific demands of the tech industry frequently emerge. One language that has caught the attention of programmers and companies around the world is Go, also known as Golang.
In this article, we’ll dive into the origin of Go, its purpose, the benefits it brings, the role it’s been playing in large enterprises and modern infrastructures, and the support available through its vibrant community of developers. Whether you’re a skilled programmer or a curious beginner in the field of programming, I hope this article offers valuable insight into why Go has become such an influential and respected programming language.
1. Go’s origin
Go, also known as Golang, is a modern programming language created in 2007 by Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike and Ken Thompson at Google to handle large-scale, complex software systems.
The initial goal of the language’s creators was to improve efficiency at Google, however, Go’s adoption quickly expanded beyond the company. Over time, the language has gained popularity across a range of industries and projects, becoming a mainstay in modern software development.
Designed to combine the efficiency of compiled languages, such as C and C++, with the readability and simplicity of interpreted languages, such as Python and JavaScript. This results in a language that offers a balance between simplicity, performance and developer experience.
2. Go’s advantages
Go stands out for its performance. Compile time is fast and memory management is efficient for most applications, providing agile and predictable performance.
While all programming languages present their own benefits and challenges, Go excels in several key aspects. Languages such as C and C++ are recognised for their high performance, but as the codebase and team (including the addition of new members) grows, code maintenance and expansion can become more complex. However, Go relieves many of these difficulties. With its simple syntax, Go favors code readability and maintenance, making it easier for new team members to quickly update. Additionally, the language offers robust support for concurrency programming, which makes it ideal for system and server development.
Finally, the Go community is another strength of the language: it is a large, vibrant and highly active one that offers an excellent experience for developers as well as a large number of educational resources available and open projects and closed source with professional support.
2.1 Community and Support in Go
The growing community of Go developers ensures extensive troubleshooting support, as well as a constant flow of third-party packages and auxiliary tools.
The Go community is also known for its dedication to improving and expanding the language, which results in regular updates that enhance efficiency, functionality and security. In addition, Go has an ecosystem with an abundance of learning resources available, which welcomes developers of all experience levels, offering a variety of resources that make it accessible to everyone from beginners to the most experienced. The community maintains a vast repository of tutorials, webinars, comprehensive documentation and examples of open source projects, providing an environment conducive to continuous learning and skills enhancement.
3. Go in Large Enterprises and Modern Infrastructures
Go plays a significant role in the technology infrastructure of many leading tech companies:
- Google: Go was developed at Google, and as such, is used extensively in several of its platforms. Go is used to improve processing efficiency and to build internal tools at Google.
- Uber: Uber uses Go for some of its most critical services. For example, Uber’s geolocation service was written in Go because of its efficiency and ability to handle a high volume of requests.
- Netflix: Netflix uses Go for certain aspects of content delivery and for some of its microservices.
- Twitch: Twitch uses Go for various parts of its back-end infrastructure, including some of its chat systems and the Transcoder API.
- Dropbox: Dropbox has migrated some parts of its infrastructure from Python to Go for better performance. Significant parts of its internal systems, network infrastructure and file servers are now written in Go.
- Docker and Kubernetes: Go is the primary language used in the development of Docker and Kubernetes, two open-source projects that play key roles in upgrading and scaling IT infrastructure in many organizations.
- LinkedIn: LinkedIn uses Go for some of its back-end systems.
Go’s ability to handle concurrency at a high level is especially useful for companies with a large volume of requests and operating at a large scale. This makes it an excellent choice for developing microservices and cloud infrastructures.
It is undoubtedly one of today’s most flexible languages, which allows all types of programmers to create the tools of the future. It is the ideal combination of simplicity, practicality, and efficiency.
Have you ever worked with C, Python or Javascript? Then you already “know” Go too 😛
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Paulo studied Information and Communication Technology and is a Software Engineer at Affinity. Passionate about innovation, Paulo has been specializing in the Golang language and balancing technology with music and video production. He has his own studio at home and when he's not programming, he's dedicated to producing and editing songs and music videos!