Go Programming Language

Golang is a procedural programming language. It was developed in 2007 by Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson at Google but launched in 2009 as an open-source programming language. Programs are assembled by using packages, for efficient management of dependencies. This language also supports environment adopting patterns alike to dynamic languages. For eg., type inference (y := 0 is a valid declaration of a variable y of type float).

Go is a statically typed, concurrent, and garbage-collected programming language created at Google in 2009. It is designed to be simple, efficient, and easy to learn, making it a popular choice for building scalable network services, web applications, and command-line tools.

Go is known for its support for concurrency, which is the ability to run multiple tasks simultaneously. Concurrency is achieved in Go through the use of Goroutines and Channels, which allow you to write code that can run multiple operations at the same time. This makes Go an ideal choice for building high-performance and scalable network services, as well as for solving complex computational problems.

Another important feature of Go is its garbage collection, which automatically manages memory for you. This eliminates the need for manual memory management, reducing the likelihood of memory leaks and other bugs that can arise from manual memory management.

Go, also known as Golang, is an open-source programming language created by Google in 2007. It was designed to be efficient, easy to learn, and to provide support for modern hardware architectures. Go is often used for building large-scale distributed systems and high-performance applications.

Here are some key features of Go:

1. Simplicity: Go is designed to be easy to learn and use. Its syntax is simple and straightforward, making it a good choice for beginners and experienced programmers alike.
2. Concurrency: Go has built-in support for concurrency, allowing developers to write efficient and scalable code for multicore and distributed systems.
3. Garbage collection: Go has automatic memory management, which frees developers from having to worry about memory allocation and deallocation.
4. Fast compile times: Go has a fast compiler, which makes it easy to iterate quickly during development.
5. Cross-platform support: Go can be compiled to run on many different platforms, including Windows, Linux, and macOS.
6. Strong typing: Go is a statically typed language, which helps catch errors at compile time rather than at runtime.
7. Go has a large and growing community of developers and is used by many well-known companies, including Google, Uber, and Dropbox.

Here are some important points to keep in mind about Go programming language:

1. Go is a statically typed language, which means that the type of a variable must be declared before it can be used.
2. Go has a built-in garbage collector that automatically frees up memory when it is no longer needed.
3. Go has strong support for concurrency, allowing developers to write efficient and scalable code for multicore and distributed systems.
4. Go has a minimalist syntax that is easy to learn and read.
5. Go has a fast compiler that generates code that is optimized for modern hardware architectures.
6. Go has a standard library that provides support for a wide range of functionality, including networking, encryption, and file handling.
7. Go has a growing community of developers and a vibrant ecosystem of third-party packages and tools.
8. Go is used by many well-known companies for building large-scale distributed systems and high-performance applications.
9. Overall, Go is a powerful and efficient programming language that is well-suited for building modern applications and distributed systems. Its strong support for concurrency and minimalist syntax make it an attractive choice for developers who want to build scalable and efficient applications.

Go also has a straightforward syntax and a simple type system, making it easy to learn and use, even for people with no prior programming experience.

Here’s a simple “Hello, World!” program in Go:

• Go

package main   import "fmt"   func main() {     fmt.Println("Hello, World!") }

Output:

Hello, World!

 Beginning with GO : 

There are various online IDEs such as The Go Playground, repl.it, etc. which can be used to run Go programs without installing. 
For installing Go in own PCs or Laptop we need of following two software: Text editor and Compiler 
Text Editor: Text editor gives you a platform where you write your source code. Following are the list of text editors:  

• Windows notepad
• OS Edit command
• Brief
• Epsilon
• vm or vi
• Emacs
• VS Code

Finding a Go Compiler: Go distribution comes as a binary installable for FreeBSD (release 8 and above), Linux, Mac OS X (Snow Leopard and above), and Windows operating systems with 32-bit (386) and 64-bit (amd64) x86 processor architectures. 

Note: Extension of source code file of go language must be .go

Writing first program in Go:  

• Go

package main     import "fmt"   func main() {        // prints geeksforgeeks      fmt.Println("Hello, geeksforgeeks") }

Output:  

Hello, geeksforgeeks

Explanation of the syntax of Go program: 

• Line 1: It contains the package main of the program, which have overall content of the program.It is the initial point to run the program, So it is compulsory to write.
• Line 2: It contains import “fmt”, it is a preprocessor command which tells the compiler to include the files lying in the package.
• Line 3: main function, it is beginning of execution of program.
• Line 4: fmt.Println() is a standard library function to print something as a output on screen.In this, fmt package has transmitted Println method which is used to display the output.
• Comment: Comments are used for explaining code and are used in similar manner as in Java, C, C++ Compilers ignore the comment entries and does not execute them. Comments can be of single line or multiple lines.

Single Line Comment: 

Syntax: 

// single line comment

Multi-line Comment: 

Syntax: 

/* multiline comment */

Following is another example:  

• Go

package main import "fmt"   func main() {    fmt.Println("1 + 1 =", 1 + 1) }

Output:  

1 + 1 = 2

Explanation of the above program: In this above program, the same package line, the same import line, the same function declaration and uses the same Println function as we have used in 1st GO program. This time instead of printing the string “Hello, geeksforgeeks” we print the string 1 + 1 = followed by the result of the expression 1 + 1. This expression is made up of three parts: the numeric literal 1 (which is of type int), the + operator (which represents addition) and another numeric literal 1. 

Why this “Go language”?

Because Go language is an effort to combine the ease of programming of an interpreted, dynamically typed language with the efficiency and safety of a statically typed, compiled language. It also aims to be modern, with support for networked and multicore computing. 

What excluding in Go which is present in other languages? 

• Go attempts to reduce the amount of typing in both senses of the word. Throughout its design, developers tried to reduce clutter and complexity.
• There are no forward declarations and no header files; everything is declared exactly once.
• Stuttering is reduced by simple type derivation using the := declare-and-initialize construct.
• There is no type hierarchy: types just are, they don’t have to announce their relationships.

Hardware Limitations

We have observed that in a decade, the hardware and processing configuration is changing at a very slow rate. In 2004, P4 was having the clock speed of 3.0 GHz and now in 2018, Macbook pro has the clock speed of Approx (2.3Ghz v 2.66Ghz). To speed up, the functionality we use more processors, but using more processor the cost also increases. And due to this we use limited processors and using limited processor we have a heavy programming language whose threading takes more memory and slows down the performance of our system. Hence, to overcome such problem Golang has been designed in such a way that instead of using threading it uses Goroutine, which is similar to threading but consumes very less memory. 
Like threading consumes 1MB whereas Goroutine consumes 2KB of memory, hence at the same time, we can have millions of goroutine triggered. 
So the above-discussed point makes golang a strong language that handles concurrency like C++ and Java. 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Go Language

Advantages:  

1. Flexible– It is concise, simple and easy to read.
2. Concurrency– It allows multiple process running simultaneously and effectively.
3. Quick Outcome– Its compilation time is very fast.
4. Library- It provides a rich standard library.
5. Garbage collection– It is a key feature of go. Go excels in giving a lot of control over memory allocation and has dramatically reduced latency in the most recent versions of the garbage collector.
6. It validates for the interface and type embedding.
7. Concurrency: Go provides excellent support for concurrency, making it easy to write code that can run multiple tasks simultaneously. This is achieved through Goroutines and Channels, which allow you to write code that can run multiple operations at the same time.
8. Performance: Go is designed to be fast and efficient, with a focus on performance and low memory usage. This makes it well-suited for building high-performance network services, as well as for solving complex computational problems.
9. Simplicity: Go has a straightforward syntax and a simple type system, making it easy to learn and use, even for people with no prior programming experience.
10. Garbage Collection: Go has built-in garbage collection, which automatically manages memory for you. This eliminates the need for manual memory management, reducing the likelihood of memory leaks and other bugs that can arise from manual memory management.
11. Statically Typed: Go is a statically typed language, which means that types are determined at compile time. This provides stronger type safety and makes it easier to catch type-related bugs before they occur.

Disadvantages:  

1. It has no support for generics, even if there are many discussions about it.
2. The packages distributed with this programming language is quite useful but Go is not so object-oriented in the conventional sense.
3. There is absence of some libraries especially a UI tool kit.
4. Limited Object-Oriented Features: Go does not have full-fledged object-oriented features like inheritance and polymorphism. This can make it more difficult to write complex programs, especially for developers who are used to traditional object-oriented languages.
5. No Generics: Go does not have built-in support for generics, which makes it difficult to write reusable code.
6. Immature Standard Library: Go’s standard library is relatively new and still maturing, which can make it difficult to find the tools you need for a particular task.

Some popular Applications developed in Go Language

• Docker: a set of tools for deploying linux containers
• Openshift: a cloud computing platform as a service by Red Hat.
• Kubernetes: The future of seamlessly automated deployment processes
• Dropbox: migrated some of their critical components from Python to Go.
• Netflix: for two part of their server architecture.
• InfluxDB: is an open-source time series database developed by InfluxData.
• Golang: The language itself was written in Go.

Features of go language 

• Language Design: The designers of the language made a conscious purpose to keep the language simple and easy to understand. The entire detailing is in a few pages and some interesting design decisions were made through Object-Oriented support in the language.Towards this, the language is opinionated and recommends an idiomatic way of achieving things. It prefers Composition over Inheritance. In Go Language, “Do More with Less” is the mantra.
• Package Management: Go merges modern day developer workflow of working with Open Source projects and includes that in the way it manages external packages. Support is provided directly in the tooling to get external packages and publish your own packages in a set of easy commands.
• Powerful standard library: Go has powerful standard library, which is distributed as packages.
• Static Typing:Go is static typed language. So, in this compiler not just work on compiling the code successfully but also ensures on type conversions and compatibility. Because of this feature Go avoid all those problems which we face in dynamically typed languages.
• Testing Support: Go provides us the unit testing features by itself i.e., a simple mechanism to write your unit test parallel with your code because of this you can understand you code coverage by your own tests. And that can be easily used in generating your code documentation as an example.
• Platform Independent: Go language is just like Java language as it support platform independency. Due to its modular design and modularity i.e., the code is compiled and is converted into binary form which is as small as possible and hence, it requires no dependency. Its code can be compiled in any platform or any server and application you work on.