What is Go?
Go is a free, open-source programming language supported by Google. As far as we know, the language is called Go instead of Golang because of its former domain name, golang.org. In 2007, Google developed Go to help programmers work more efficiently and productively in an age of multicore, networked machines, and large code bases. Go was announced to the public in 2009, and its first version, 1.0, was made open source in 2012.
Benefits of Go
Using Go over other programming languages has several benefits, such as:
- No virtual machine (VM) needed
- Automatic garbage collection
- Portability
- Memory safety
- Lightweight goroutines that support concurrency
- Interfaces enable loosely coupled systems
- Quick compilation and execution speed.
- Independent error handling
- Extensive built-in libraries
Applications of the Go programming language
There are many software development teams and products that use Go. Applications using Go include container services, such as Docker and Kubernetes, cloud services, such as Terraform and OpenShift, and service orchestration tools, such as Juju, as well as Bitcoin networks, such as Lightning Network. The Go programming language is used by Couchbase, which uses it for its Search and Indexing services; Dropbox, which switched from Python to Go; MongoDB for tools related to MongoDB instances; and Netflix for some of its server architectures.
What is the Go used for?
Go was originally designed for networking and infrastructure programs. It was intended to replace popular high-performance server-side languages like Java and C++. Go is used for a variety of purposes:
- Go is popular among cloud-based or server-side applications.
- Go is also used for micro-controller programming, robotics, and games.
- DevOps and site reliability automation are also popular uses for Go.
- Go is used by many command-line tools.
- Go is used in data science and artificial intelligence.
Today, some of the most popular infrastructure tools are written in Go – such as Kubernetes, Docker, and Prometheus.
Advantages of Go Programming Language
- Ease of Use: One of the biggest benefits of the Go language is that its syntax is similar to that of C and C++. It is not necessary to learn and implement many complex functions.
- Impressive Standard Library. A comprehensive standard library comes packaged with Go, which eliminates the need to import or learn complex secondary libraries. The Go standard library is sophisticated yet not confusing, which reduces the risk of confusion caused by conflicting function names.
- Time-Saving: With features like the automatic declaration of variables, latency-free garbage collection, and faster compile time, it saves consideration development time; giving developers enough time to be productive.
- Cross-Platform Development Opportunities: Another advantage of going with this language is that multiple types of applications can be developed in Go. It includes software and mobility solutions for Windows, Unix, Linux, BSD versions, and mobile platforms.
- Scalable: Another feature that makes Golang outshine other programming languages is that it is highly scalable. Top android app developers can work on multiple tasks at once, especially channels and goroutines.
- Faster Compilation and Execution: In the Golang development environment, there is no Virtual Machine. Direct compilation to machine code makes the compilation process faster and more efficient. After compilation, the compiler produces just one executable file. This file does not have any dependencies and can be uploaded and used anywhere. This makes the code execution process faster.