There is no perfect programming language. Each developer feels more comfortable with some, and certain languages are specialized in certain types of projects. Also, keep in mind that there are many old and outdated programming languages. For this reason, it is normal for some large companies to go for their own modern programming languages, inspired by the classics, which are more powerful, simple and prepared for the needs of modern computing. And this is what happens with Golang, also known as Google Go .
The development of the Go programming language started in 2007, although it was not until 2009 when Google finally made it known. This programming language was born as a need to create a specialized programming language especially to cover the network needs of today’s projects. This language is specialized in Cloud and network services , great scalability possibilities for web development, a highly optimized language ideal for DevOpc, and a command line-based interface that gives us outstanding performance along with absolute control.
Today there are a lot of companies and big companies relying on this programming language. PayPal, for example, relies on this language, in addition to American Express, Twitch, Netflix, Twitter and Uber, among others.
package main
import “fmt”
func main () {
fmt.Println (“Hello, world.”)
}
The best of Go
One of the main characteristics of this programming language is that, leaving aside its peculiarities, it is very similar to C. Any user who already has knowledge and experience programming in C will be able to learn very easily how to program in this Google programming language. In addition to being similar to C, Go gets a lot of inspiration from Python too, importing many of the features of this language, in addition to its ease of use.
Go uses a statically typed system, achieving outstanding performance since its compiler passes Go’s code directly to machine code. It also has several additional functions that make it a language much more powerful than its rivals, such as, for example, a garbage collector, reflection functions and cross-compilation.
This programming language is object oriented. However, unlike others, it does not have type inheritance , which can be confusing. It also allows the use of delegation and polymorphism.
Thanks to concurrency (possibility of simultaneous calculations), Go allows to run much faster. In addition, thanks to the garbage collector you can improve memory usage and avoid space problems.
Google created Go as an alternative to the most used programming languages, such as C ++, Java or C #, but being a much lighter and faster language than these. Its clear and simple syntax, along with all its features, have made it become a fairly well-established programming language in a short time, especially in very large projects focused on machines with multiple processors. In addition, it has a very complete standard library for HTTP and network tasks, making it an ideal language for this type of project.
The worst of Go
However, Golang is not a perfect programming language, far from it. Most of its handicaps are due to the fact that Google has wanted to create a programming language prioritizing its ease over other factors.
One of its main weaknesses is the absence of generic data types, something that leaves out developers who are used to using this type of data, especially those that come from Java. The absence of data inheritance also forces programmers to drop classes and constructors. Therefore, although it is an object-oriented language, it is only partially so.
Of course, we also cannot forget that Go has been comparatively little time between us compared to other programming languages. This makes the amount of resources and packages available on the network, as well as the experienced people willing to help, very small.
Differences with C
As we have said, Golang is a language very similar to C. However, it has a series of quite important differences with respect to this other programming language. The first, without a doubt, is that Go is object-oriented, while C is not a POO language.
In addition, it also saves other differences against its rival, such as:
- The use of the semicolon at the end of each line is optional.
- Go uses reverse statements to make the code easier to read and interpret.
- Golang does not use pointer arithmetic, which makes it a more secure language.
- ++ and – is not an expression.
Start programming in Go
If we are interested in starting to program in this programming language, the first thing we should do is download it and install it on our computer. We can use it without problems in Windows, Linux or macOS. Go supports a large number of programming IDEs, for example with Visual Studio Code . And, in addition, Google offers us a simple online environment through which we will be able to program, compile and execute code from our browser.
Nor can we forget that Google offers from the Go website a large number of online resources with which to learn to program in this programming language. In addition to its complete introductory guide, we can find links to a large number of courses, such as Web Dev, Codeacademy, Codelabs and Gophercises, among other platforms. And we can also find recommended programming books to start programming, or mastering, this language.