Why Backend Developers Should Learn The Go Programming Language

There is no shortage of programming languages ​​for backend development: you can take universal Python, heavy and enterprise Java, or popular JavaScript. But if you are going to write something productive and at the same time easy to maintain, there is nowhere to go – you need to learn the Golang language.

Reason 1: The Imperfection Of Programming Languages

Most programming languages ​​appeared in the 20th century. Computer science then developed, producing hundreds of implementations of different concepts for writing and executing code: compiled, interpreted, functional, event, and object.

Despite the external diversity, these approaches are based on one feature – they were developed for single-processor and single-core systems because there were no others at that time. Multithreading and multiprocessing were cool gadgets for intelligent programmers but not mandatory features.

Everything changed at the beginning of the 21st century when Intel changed its processor development strategy and taught the chips to execute commands in parallel instead of increasing the core frequencies. This innovation changed how programs work, so it became possible to perform a considerable number of calculations simultaneously, in parallel, on different cores.

Programming languages ​​created in the era of single-core systems can also run on multi-core systems, but their internal algorithms are far from ideal. The same Python or JavaScript runs successfully on modern multi-core processors but does not use the full power of the chips.

Reason 2: Complexity Of Multi-Threaded Code

When several pieces of code are executed simultaneously, the system’s state constantly changes and is not always obvious:

• Data comes in.
• Queries fail with errors.
• Different parts of code try to update the same values ​​in memory simultaneously.

This must be understood and considered so that the code does not lose speed.

Writing multi-threaded and multi-process code has always been a challenge. This area of ​​computer science has its design patterns, subtleties, and pitfalls.

Reason 3: Nice Low-Level Go language

For maximum performance, you must write in compiled languages ​​that live as close to memory and hardware as possible, without virtual machines and other intermediaries. Therefore, languages ​​like C ++ are most often taken for relaxed fast code. Working with memory, cunning instruction optimizations, and a high degree of control over what is happening in the system allow you to write intelligent programs on it.

The downside of writing code close to hardware is that no one can save you from errors. Python, for example, will not let you do stupid things – it will solve all your problems. Low-level code forces the programmer to think about many things, such as clearing the memory of unused variables, correctly allocating resources for calculations, and adequately responding to OS signals. All this must be written by yourself.

The Goland programming language is the future of the high-load backend.

Go is a language of maximum performance, with cool asynchrony, concurrency, and control over code execution. Programming in Go is sometimes more accessible than in JS, and the program execution speed is close to C + (or even faster).

There is no cooler and simpler solution in the modern landscape of developing an agile backend. The other technologies are either slower, more complicated, or haven’t been invented yet.

Also Read: Basic Microservice Development Patterns