Golang is an open source programming language designed at Google. It is designed by Ken Thompson (Creator of UNIX and B language), Rob Pike (who co-designed Plan-9 which was operating system designed after UNIX at Bell labs) and Robert Griesemer. All the creators are well versed who are considered to be their programming ideals by many world-wide.
Features of Golang
1. It is Statically Typed
Like C , C++ and other languages, Golang is also statically typed language. Statically typed languages means less errors as types will be checked before compiling by compilers. Also, types help in scaling the apps.
2. Golang is Compiled Language
Unlike Python, Perl, Ruby, etc., Golang is compiled language. Compiled language means that written source code will be directly converted to machine level language (binary ELFs). This means increase in speed of execution (interpreted languages are slow because of interpretation). This really helps in Performance critical applications like in servers, embedded applications, etc.
3. Garbage Collection
Golang has been influenced very much by C. But, Unlike C language where you (de)allocate memory manually, Golang automatically handles all those hustles of manual memory management, thanks to mark-sweep garbage collection.
4. Small and Concise Language specs
Golang has been designed from core not to be bloat. That’s why the language specs of Golang is only few pages compared to very huge languages like C++. It helps to easily learn the language.
5. Extreme Readability
Because Golang is focused on minimalism (“Clear is better than clever”), Golang programs are easy to read. Easy readability increases productivity as it helps in debugging.
6. Concurrency
Golang introduced to the world “Goroutines” which is the lightest thread on which programs will run on. Thanks to Goroutines, your program can take full advantage of modern multi-core machines and perform at the fullest.
7. “One True Brace Style”
Every sentence ends with semicolon( ‘;’ ) in C like languages. But, it reduces readability. Thanks to “One True Brace Style”, compiler will handle those semicolons for you. But, you will be forced to follow “One True Brace Style”, i.e., functions have their opening braces on the same line separated by a space, and that the braces are not omitted for a control statement with only a single statement in its scope.
8. “Go fmt”
Gofmt’s style is no one’s favorite, yet gofmt is everyone’s favorite. gofmt enforces single coding style to Golang. This prevents error, increases readability. gofmt will handle all formatting task for you.
9. Many web, terminal, general packages
Golang has been described as next language for web backends. Due to scaling, goroutines , ease to use, most people prefer Golang over other languages for web development. Since, it has many TUI packages, it can be used in terminal applications easily. It has been also used in many other general fields too.
10. Single Binary executable
Golang creates single binary executable which is statically linked. Copy that binary executable over any machine with same operating system and your program will run.
11. Cross Compilation
With Golang, you can create binary executables for other operating systems easily. From Linux, you can compile Golang for MacOS or Windows, or vice-versa. You can be 100% sure that your application will run on those systems.
Why you must choose Golang
1. Ease to use/learn
Due to Golang’s focus on minimalism and maximum efficiency, you can learn Golang in a week and be productive within a month. Also, you can train your employees easily to develop in Golang, Thanks to ease learning curve.
2. Golang is becoming de-facto of Web Backends
Due to hundreds of backend packages and backend related components, it is becoming de-facto of Web backends. Lot of commercial companies are using Golang successfully. Golang has been developed for network critical applications at Google, so your applications will also scale very high.
3. Single Binary
Golang produces single binary executable and so eases deployment.
4. Efficient
A small language that compiles fast makes for a happy developer. The Go language is small, compiles really fast, and as a result it lets your mind focus on the actual problem and less on the tool you are using to solve it. Code, test, debug cycles are so quick that you forget you are not working with an interpreted language. Looking at our code, you see less boilerplate and more business logic.
5. Powerful
Go has excellent characteristics for scalability and services written using it typically have very small memory footprints. Because code is compiled into a single static binary, services can also be containerized with ease, making it much simpler to build and deploy. These attributes make Go an ideal choice for companies building micro-services, as you can easily deploy into a highly available and scalable environment such as Kubernetes.
6. Trusted by Giants
Golang is used and trusted by many large companies including Google, Cloudflare, Stripe etc. They are experiencing high success with Golang. So, Golang can be used to boost success in your project.
Conclusion
Golang is easy to learn, easy to deploy, has less boilerplate, and is performant and trusted by many successful companies. These are the reasons why you must choose Golang in 2020.
