Seeing the multi-core reality of today’s computer, Google introduced language with an earned title “the hottest programming language” that is Go language. The Golang or Go programming language is an open-source project that is used for building reliable and efficient software. However, being a general-purpose programming language, it can help in developing large-scale complex software. There are many more interesting features and other details related to the Go language that we will cover in this article. So, let’s get started with the basics of Go.
Go Language: Features and Tools
The Go Programming language better known as Golang is a statically typed and compiled language just like C++ that boasts the user-friendliness of dynamically typed. Moreover, Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient as it makes it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines. Go compiles quickly to machine code with having the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. To learn more let’s talk about the top features of the Go language.
Features of GoLang
- Firstly, Go creates binaries for the applications complete with all the dependencies. Moreover, there are no requirements for interpreters or runtime installations.
- Secondly, Go includes a low-latency garbage collector for automatic memory management that is both efficient and concurrent.
- Thirdly, it is a statically typed language that supports type safety in which the errors are caught by the compiler before execution.
- Go supports multiple programming paradigms including imperative, object-oriented programming (OOP) without inheritance and functional programming.
- It also includes a powerful standard library of packages to support the development of Go programs.
- Lastly, it has GoDoc that is a static code analysis tool for creating simplified standardized documentation directly from the code.
Different Tools used in GoLang
There are various tools that are available in the Go language. Some of them are,
- Firstly, Automatic documentation. Go has GoDoc that automatically generates documentation from Go code. Moreover, using GoDoc can help in getting the structured and formatted technical documentation that includes features like cross-referencing, code examples, etc.
- Secondly, the Static code analysis. There is GoMetaLinter in Go which refers to a meta-tool that helps the developers to analyze code quickly with all the details. Moreover, it allows you to create your own LR parsers for better analysis with saving time.
- Then, it contains an embedded testing environment. Go provides developers a simple API that can be used for testing, profiling, and for adding code samples. With this, you can easily start testing, run parallel tests and skip tests.
- Lastly, Race condition detection. There can be an issue that can appear while creating multi-threaded applications which can create a lot of errors. As a result, the Go creators came up with a Race Detector to solve all the race condition issues by providing backward compatibility.
Areas to Work
Go helps in providing scalability to high-performance apps and thus used by many top organizations. However, below there are some services that are using Go.
- Firstly, Cloud services. Google is using Go language to provide cloud infrastructure as it provides high performance and scalability to the Google Cloud Platform. Moreover, there are other cloud businesses that are using Go includes Dropbox, Terraform, Kubernetes, and Docker.
- Secondly, Media platforms. Big names like YouTube, SoundCloud, and Netflix are using Go to resolve issues with high loads on their sites. Moreover, SoundCloud uses this language for deploying internal services within their complex projects.
- Then, News outlets. The BBC started using Go for its backend development and some of the elements of its internal analytics services.
- Lastly, On-demand services. The taxi king Uber opted Go language to improve map processing speeds and also reduce the timing of providing services to users.
In the next section, we will learn about the study guides and paths that can help you in becoming a Go developer.
Pathway to Learn Go Language
Moving into the world of programming can be both challenging and terrifying. As learning programming is a challenging task that requires a planned map to guide you. The resources which we will talk about can help you in evaluating and understanding the concepts. Let’s start with the steps to learn GO.
Go Tour
For those who are having a good programming experience can start with the Go tour. This will help you in getting familiar with the syntax in Go and will give you a quick introduction. However, this tour is best for experienced developers, so for those who are new, this will be quite complex. After enhancing skills and knowledge you can professionally advance yourself by applying for certifications exam. Further, passing the certification will provide you a Certified Go Language Professional tag. Moreover, this will help in moving to a higher level in your organization in a good position.
Go Documentation
The Go programming language refers to an open-source project that helps in making programmers more productive. However, the Go provides the documentation to get you a brief map of the Go language. In this you will get detail about the installing Go process, learning methods with writing code and other things. This will help you in understanding the basics of the GO language.
Intermediate Level Study Guide
Candidates who are new in the programming world and want to learn how to program, then a lot of programming practice is required. Moreover, there is a need to get familiar with the language, the syntax, and the tools you are going to use in GO. So, try to code everything by yourself and you can also take help from the online resources. This will provide you an advantage as they will provide you good study material and resources to understand the concepts. Moreover, some of them even provide free practice tests for the GO language. Lastly, Get into programming and take the best out of it.
Improving as a Developer
After knowing about the basics of coding and other important things about programming. The next step is to advance yourself as a developer and getting beyond the minor apps thus, moving onto the big projects.
However, learning and writing syntax is easy but becoming an experienced developer needs more effort. That is to say, you must have knowledge of designing and implementing complex solutions. This takes time and practice. Further, the other way is to get certified. In other words, there are certifications for Go language which can help you in getting a bright career. Also, passing the certification can help you get a professional tag with global recognition. So, one way or the other you have to do a lot of hard work and more practice.
Courses and Books
While exercises and tutorials are a great way to learn a new language, they typically only focus on smaller scoped lessons and problems. For instance, it would be incredibly hard to teach someone everything there is about testing in a few short tutorials, but this would be a great subject for a book or course that spans many hours of content. In this section, we are going to cover some courses and books that would be useful for any budding Gopher.
- The Go Programming Language by A.A. Donovan and Brian W. Kernighan
- Introducing Go by Caleb Doxsey
Resources for GoLang
There are many sources out there that you can check to get good study material and resources for the Go language. Moreover, you can visit the official Go page which provides a Go tour to help get basic of the Go programming languages. The GO language is a great place for professional developers to dive into and for those who are new to learning and get yourself familiar with the language using the best resources available online.
Joining Communities
The best benefit of joining the developer communities is that you get to connect with people with different backgrounds like bloggers, readers, developers, etc. Moreover, this will keep you up to date with the latest topics, trends about the programming languages with what next is ginger to happen. And, if you get stuck at some part of code or face any issue then you can share that problem here. As there will experts and professionals that will help you solve the issues. Above all, this is also a better place to find opinion pieces that will help shape you as a developer.
In the next section, we will understand the role of a Go developer including the salary and top companies.
Go-Lang Developer: Job Details
Go developers are the ones having a strong understanding of how best to utilize the language’s unique paradigms, idioms, and syntax. However, the main focus is on developing Go packages and programs that are scalable and maintainable. These Go packages and programs are well documented and have reasonable test coverage. Becoming a Go developer requires professional skills and knowledge in the programming language. So, below we will talk about the skills required to become a Go Developer.
Skills Requirements
- Firstly, having a strong knowledge of Go programming language, paradigms, constructs, and idioms.
- Secondly, you should have knowledge of common Goroutine and channel patterns.
- Thirdly, having a good experience with the Go frameworks and tools that include,
- Moreover, you should have the ability to write clean and effective Godoc comments.
- Lastly, having familiarity with code versioning tools like Git, SVN, and Mercurial.
Responsibilities of a Go Developer
There are basic tasks that a Go developer needs to perform, let’s put our eye on them.
- Firstly, they are responsible for writing scalable, robust, testable, efficient, and easily maintainable code.
- Secondly, a Go developer translates the software requirements into stable, working, high-performance software.
- Go developers play a key role in architectural and design decisions. Moreover, in building efficient microservices distributed architecture
Top Companies
The top companies and organizations that are hiring Go developers include,
- NTT Data
- AQR
- Cisco Systems
- Forstaffing India
- GDB Technologies Pvt Ltd
- Xavient
- SAP
Payscale
The average salary for the Go-Lang Developer ranges from approximately ₹ 5,57,190 per year for a Developer to ₹ 6,86,849 per year for a Back End Developer.
Expert’s Corner
Go programming language has gained popularity globally and many well-known names like Netflix, Uber are using Go to achieve high performance. This totally explains that Go is the best language skills that you can have to get a good future. Moreover, it is used in projects that involve cloud service, complex backend technologies, and distributed networks. So, if you have that passion for learning and understanding the programming language then, Go is the programming language that can help you achieve your dreams.
