Enrich Your Resume by Learning Globally Popular 'Go' Programming Language

Go programming language, also called Golang, is a general-purpose, statically typed, open-source, high-level, compiled programming language designed at Google. 

The 3 creators of this programming language are Robert Griesemer, Ken Thompson, and Rob Pike. They announced Go publicly in 2009 and made it open-source in 2012. Go is popular among server-side programmers, game developers, and cloud-based app developers. 

It is the most suitable tool for developing Command-Line Interface (CLI) apps. Today, numerous tech giants like Google, Uber, Netflix, DailyMotion, Ethereum, Kubernetes, Twitch, Dropbox, Docker, SendGrid, SoundCloud, and others, use Golang. In a short time, it has found its place among the top 10 programming languages.

Go is easy to learn and has a vast and active community to support the language. Its documentation is also well-written. Due to its easy learning curve, simplicity like Python, and robust efficiency like C, it is gaining popularity in various development verticals. 

It is also known for its faster execution, extensive set of libraries and dependencies, ability to adjust as per scalability, and ability to support comprehensive tools and Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) for development. Due to the efficiency and quicker implementation capability, businesses prefer to use Golang for business app development. 

According to Glassdoor, the average base salary of a Golang software engineer is ₹8,42,488 annually. Also, there are more than 90,000 job vacancies for Golang developers across the globe. Become a Golang developer by learning more from Simpliv's Learning Path: Go: The Complete Developer's Guide to Golang.

Choosing a programming language is not that easy, especially for business apps that require both efficiency and ease. However, Go is being used across the globe and its users are present in major continents. Here is an infographic of the number of Go users spread in the world.

The top features and benefits of the Go programming language are:

Robust Toolset and Support of Standard Libraries

Go comes with numerous standard libraries and modules that leave no room for programmers to need third-party dependencies, packages, and library support. Each of its built-in libraries comes with ample components and functionalities. 

Here is a list of standard Go tools that makes the entire development process seamless:

• Go run: This toolset uses a "go run" command that helps test small code snippets during the initial development stage of the application. It enables Go to compile the code in a binary file and store it in a temporary directory for execution.
• Gofmt: It helps in formatting the Go code automatically to increase the readability of the code.
• Goget: This toolset helps download Go libraries from GitHub and stores them into your local GoPath. It enables developers to import them effortlessly into the project whenever needed.

Automatic Garbage Collection

Go offers exceptional garbage collection support. Because of this feature, which is an advantage also, developers do not have to worry about memory freeing or situations caused by dangling pointers. 

Programmers do not have to write separate lines to free up memory or manage the memory space. Due to this feature, Go has become popular among various brands (like Uber, Alibaba, Dropbox, Paypal, SoundCloud, etc.) and developer domains. If you wish to learn more about Golang's features, try QuickStart's Google Go Programming For Beginners (Golang).

Faster Compilation and Execution

Golang compiler does not leverage any virtual machine as an intermediary. The code gets directly compiled into its required binary form (machine language), which makes the compilation cogent and faster. 

Golang is always ahead of other programming languages like Python, Java, etc., in terms of speed. Again the Go compiler will produce the executable file after compilation. Such files do not require any dependencies to run irrespective of any platform or operating system. Since the executable remains in binary form, it can run anywhere and remains faster in execution.

Cross-Platform Development Capabilities

With the advent of Golang, developers can seamlessly shift to different development skills leveraging the same syntax and language constructs. This helps developers create multiple types of applications such as mobile solutions, desktop solutions, cloud-native application development, web development, etc. 

Also, developers can find room for developing applications for various platforms like Windows, Linux, Android, etc., without much hassle. This feature shows how flexible this language is than others.

Still Undergoing Development

Although Go is well-known and its adoption has increased steadily since 2014, the programming language is still in the nascent stage. Because of this reason, it is becoming challenging for Go to compete with the other top programming languages like Python, Java, JavaScript, etc.

No Specific Niche

Google developed it to be an ‘fit-for-all’ programming language with endless support. The characteristic of this language is that it works well on all development verticals. However, it does not have any specific niche which it stands out.

Poor Dependency Management

Anyone familiar with  the Go language can understand that dependency management is very poor in Golang. Hence programmers often face issues using numerous dependencies in a single project.

Lack of Generic Programming and Function Overloading

Another issue that Golang faces is the lack of generic programming and polymorphism features like function overloading. This creates difficulty in testing different modules and making the code reusable.

Let us explore some of the significant features that make Golang an excellent choice for cloud-based app development.

Concurrency Support

Cloud-native application development becomes seamless with the Go language because of its concurrent feature that can take advantage of the cloud's multi-core processing capabilities. Unlike other programming languages, Go has an easy trackable concurrency option. 

It enables Go-based application development to respond quickly and leverage the network and cloud storage easily. To learn more about concurrent programming in Go for cloud-based app development, tap Pluralsight's Go programming course.

Faster Build Time

Since apps developed through the Go language require less time to create the build, it helps in iterative development at lesser processing cost. The application can go through multiple phases of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) and can instantly create project builds without much memory and CPU utilization. 

Because of Go, developers can leverage the cloud features like dynamic scalability, flexible storage, and robust computational power while producing the build.

High App Productivity and Dedicated Cloud Development Kit

Since applications written in Go are efficient and fast, developers can leverage this language for developing cloud-native applications. It also helps developers to deploy cloud applications in any ecosystem (multi-cloud). The Go Cloud Development Kit acts like a standard library for cloud-based app development. All these characteristics make Golang and cloud the perfect pair.