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Go

Author: Fuwn

Created: 2021. 07. 19.

Last Modified: 2021. 07. 20.

Golang... Go is quite a funny language to me. I have a hard time taking it seriously, not because of the name, but because of the way it handles. Don't get me wrong, Go is a great tool to have under your belt, but it just feels very... "childish" ... to ME.

Other than the weird chills I get whilst working with it (I just had to get that off my back, for the record), I think Go is a pretty nifty language. Go has the "I can do anything! just not very well..." [0] feeling to it, and it is very much true! I don't write software in Go because it "fast!" or "great on memory!", I write software in Go because it "fast! ...", "to write in!".

[0] Having the aforementioned quality to it is not particularly a bad thing, I think it actually benefits Go!

Now, allow me to list some pros and cons that I have to say about Golang with some things to note while reading:

These are ...

in no particular order
my opinions!
things that aren't explicitly advertised

Pros

Reasons for anyone to learn or to use Go!

Fast enough: Not Rust fast, but not Python slow
Lots of resources (books, documentation, libraries, tutorials, et cetera)
Quite easy to pick up (having had prior experience with C-like programming languages)
Can do just about anything!

Cons

Nitpicks, not deal-breakers!

Garbage collected: Not necessarily a hard-con, but contributes to more memory overhead (not as much as Node.js though)
Can be too simple at times
Creepy dependency management and "package manager": `$ go get ...` seems pre-mature and underdeveloped

One thing you might see a lot when there is talk about Go is the claim that Go hasn't "found it's niche" or "it has no real purpose". To that I say; Go's niche is it's simplicity, it's ability to introduce someone into the compiled language space, and to develop software with speed.