What is Go Language and why is it so popular?

Like any other programming language Go-Language is also climbing the success ladder rapidly. So now you must be wondering what exactly this Go language is and why is it so popular? To answer this question let’s first take a look at what it holds.

Golang, abbreviated as – “Go,” is a fast, high-performance, open-source compiled programming language that is statistically typed. It was designed at Google. Syntactically Go is similar to C and it made its recently stable release 1.13 on September 3, 2019. Moreover, as addition to C, Go offers – memory safety, structural typing, garbage collection, and CSP-Style concurrency.

There are two major implementations

• Google’s self-hosting compiler toolchain targeting multiple OS, mobile devices, and WebAssembly.
• Gccgo, a GCC frontend.

Top most Reasons to Use Golang

Here we have enlisted a few of the important reasons to consider:

Open Source Language

Since we already now know Golang is an open source language. So, which means it isn’t restrictive in nature and anybody can contribute to it.

Firstly, it’s easy to Learn

When compared to other languages Golang’s syntax is small thus making it easy to learn. This language is easy to understand, can fit in your mind, and you don’t have to spend time looking it up. Also, it’s very clean and easy-to-learn and that even non-Golang developers, those familiar with C, can learn and understand GoLang easily.

Secondly its fast Performance

What makes it a really fast programming language is the Golang’s small syntax and concurrency model. Go language is compiled to machine code also its compilation process is very fast. Also, Go links all the dependency libraries into a single binary file. Therefore, eliminating its dependency on servers.

Next the easy Concurrency Model

Go language is built for concurrency. This makes it easy to progress with multiple tasks at the same time. It has “goroutines,” lightweight threads that communicate via a “channel.” An advantage is that the growable segment stacks in goroutines only use more memory when required.

Subsequently the explicit Designing for the Cloud

Nowadays, apps are by default designed to be cloud-native. So, the programming languages need to be designed keeping the cloud in mind. Golang was written especially for the cloud. So, this is of other reasons for the reason for its growth and popularity.

Also, portability and Multi-Platform Nature

Go is a cross-platform language. One can write code with an ease in any environment — OS-X, Linux, or Windows. So, code written in Windows can be compiled and built in a Linux environment.

The features Go Language holds

There are many different features Go Language holds. Here we have discussed them below:

Primarily the Security

Since Go is statically and strongly typed, therefore it implies that you need to be explicit in the type of data you are going to pass. And it also means that compiler knows the type of every variable respectively. And it has a Garbage Collector that cleans up and helps integrates the whole collection into an executable binary. Thus, it makes the entire framework more secure.

Secondly Garbage Collection

It has a real-time Garbage Collector (GC) for automatic memory management. Therefore, allocation and removal of objects is made easy and without any pause by this concurrent GC feature. Thus, boosts the efficiency of applications.

Next Powerful Standard Library

Golang boasts of a standard library, which has plethora of features that don’t need third-party support. It offers superb built-in functions especially for working with the original types. Also, Go has packages for handling I/O, easily standing up a web server, cryptography, and so on.

Moreover Testing Support

Go Language brings out the Unit Testing right into the language itself. It provides a simple technique to write your unit tests in correspondence with your code. Also, the tooling provides support to understand code coverage by your tests, bench-marking tests and writing example code that is used in generating your code documentation.

Subsequently Microservice Architecture

Microservice architecture segregates the entire application into a set of multiple manageable services. Therefore, this sort of distributed system enables fast development of apps in a less complex manner. Also, the specialized support services in the Go-kit make it easy to adopt microservices and reap its benefits.

Present and Future

If we see Golang is the ideal choice, with the excellent combination of concurrency, safety, and simplicity of programming. It is an amazing language for writing web services and can be combined easily with other services. Moreover, these days top most companies/organizations are using Golang for software and mobile application development.

Also, some of the big-names that utilize Golang are -YouTube, Uber, Google, BBC, Dailymotion, Adobe, etc. Since the market for Golang is still gradually growing. Therefore, it seems that the future continues to support this demand.

How it Started

The target of the Go project was to eliminate the slowness and clumsiness of software development at Google. And resultant makes the process more productive and scalable. The language was basically designed by and for the people i.e. those who write, read, debug and maintain large software systems.

The tools to learn:

• Primarily, Gofmt as the name implies it is a tool used to automatically format Go source code.
• Secondly, Gorun this tool is often used by Go developers in Python and source codes.
• Thirdly, Goget this tool is used to easily access and import libraries from Go paths.
• Subsequently, Godoc is used in the documentation process in HTML. It parses source code for smooth navigation with a single click.

One of the most demanded

Yes, you heard it right. The GoLang is quite much in demand because of its features and simple nature. So, here we’ll discuss about what has made it so well liked-

Golang Is Trending

Go’s community is growing gradually from year to year. It has more than 35 thousand stars on GitHub and more than 3 thousand commits. In the year 2016 Golang was named the language of the year.

Furthermore, it is also one of the most fast-growing and loved programming languages of the recent years.

Since we already know Golang developers are in love with the language and its capabilities. Therefore, customers like the results and solutions that are possible with Go. Top companies like- Cloudflare, Docker, IBM, Firefox, BCC, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc., use Golang with a more efficient and straightforward stack to cover their backend needs.

Go language Is Effective

Golang is ideally suitable for the development of high-performing server challenges. As, it is quick and reliable. If we compare Go to any other programming language, according to the benchmarks, Go is faster almost by a hundred times. Go is winning the game everywhere, even including downloading GPUs and memory. Moreover, no wonder that over 500 million users in 2014 Dropbox decided to migrate its performance-critical back-ends features from other languages to Go.

Also, the usage of the language by large companies is not only the confirmation of its popularity. But also, an assurance of its further development and optimization.

As recently reported Go language is one of the fastest growing and most loved programming languages in the past years. So, it induces the curiosity to learn the language in those who are passionate enough about programming.

The learning Promenade

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. As, its concurrency technique makes it simple to write programs that get the most out of multi-core and networked machines. While, its novel type system enables it’s flexible and modular program construction.

Go collates quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. Therefore, it’s a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

Learn Go Language

• Firstly, the official Golang site materials and of course, a Tour of Go. Go is the most liked because their time provides so many official tips for beginning developers. Go ahead and use them.

• Secondly, Golang on GitHub. This is for those who really want to master any language, straight up go to GitHub. There you’ll find a community which is eager to assist, provide you the practical information and tips.

• Next is online communities, in case you aren’t aware of this. There are online communities for Go-Language professionals where they regularly discuss about the updates and upgrade their knowledge. So, if you have any question while working with Go, chances are, it already was discussed on those portals.

• Subsequently the blogs. It’s a must-read for any developer because fundamental articles about development concepts and gives rare insights are published regularly. Obviously, the blogs aren’t only about Golang, but the available Go articles definitely deserve special attention.

• Then the Golang Bridge Forum. Here you can understand the language specifics from insiders who actually practice the language every day. This one is many favourite – as it’s active, friendly, and insightful.

• In fine, it’s often seen how developers write that Golang is so very easy. Don’t buy it. This is because in some aspects, it’s indeed easier but, just like any other language it also has its own very specific features. So, be ready to work a lot, that’s all.

The certifications

Although, there are many certification bodies offering certification courses. Choose the best and become a Certified Go Language Professional.

The Employability

A great Go developer is the one who possesses a strong understanding of “how best to leverage” and exploit the language’s idioms, unique paradigms, and syntax. While the primary focal point will be on developing Go packages and programs that are scalable and maintainable.

One will ensure that these Go packages and programs are well documented and has a reasonable test coverage. Also, the most important is the coordination with the rest of the team working on different layers of the infrastructure. Thus, a keen commitment to collaborative problem solving, sophisticated design, and quality product is the vital element.

Responsibilities

• Primarily writing scalable, robust, testable, efficient, and easily maintainable code
• Also, translating software requirements into stable, working, high performance software
• Subsequently playing a vital role in architectural and design decisions, building towards an efficient micro-service distributed architecture

Skills

• Firstly, a strong knowledge of Go programming language, paradigms, constructs, and idioms
• Secondly the knowledge of common Goroutine and channel patterns
• Next is experience with the full site of Go frameworks and tools, including:

Dependency management tools such as Godep, Sltr, etc.

Go’s templating language

Go’s code generation tools, such as Stringer

Popular Go web frameworks, such as Revel

Router packages, such as Gorilla Mux

• Subsequently the ability to write clean and effective Godoc comments is imperative
• In fine, familiarity with code versioning tools {{such as Git, SVN, and Mercurial}}

To Wind up

Go langugae as we have seen has become the core of many big companies like- Netflix, FireFox and BCC, etc. Thus this clearly indicates its potential and growth. So, go learn GO and boost your career.