Writing the backend of a website or a web server? Go (otherwise known as Golang) may just be your best friend. A fast, easy to use programming language packed full of features, Go has the ability to create fast, dynamic web pages without having to wrestle with archaic languages such as C++ or Java. Go is actively maintained by Google, but remains an open source and free use language.
Speed and Performance
As a compiled language, Golang is extremely fast. It features static type checking, an open source compiler, and several linters. In several performance benchmarks, Go has been shown to be nearly as fast as C, while retaining features of higher level languages such as data abstraction and automatic garbage collection. This allows a faster programming time while still maintaining performance specs very similar to much lower level languages.
Ease of Use
Go has been described by many developers as being syntactically similar to Python, perhaps one of the easiest to use(yet slow) programming languages. Additionally, its extensive standard library, which includes features such as multithreaded programming and API design, obviates the need for third-party libraries and frameworks. Finally, GoLang is based on C, which makes it fully extendable with C/C++ functions (for when you may need an extra speed boost).
Monitoring Ability
Programs and services such as Golang Monitoring allow developers to easily observe Go performance metrics before the code is even compiled. These powerful tools allow Go programmers to easily identify weak points in their code and fully optimize them before deployment. Additionally, they monitor a developer’s backend server even during deployment and automatically alert the developer about potential issues and bugs that users run across, thus allowing patches and updates to be released far quicker.
Summing It Up
Overall, Go’s ability to create fast backend servers without the hassle and time commitment of using a lower level language provides developers yet another powerful tool for improving their websites. Features such as API endpoint libraries and C extendable functions also allow developers to develop full web servers without having to rely on heavyweight frameworks such as Django or Ruby-on-Rails. Finally, the added ability to monitor a deployed server live using Go Monitoring makes Go an enticing choice for back-end engineers. Current sites that actively use Go for their backend infrastructure include Youtube, Soundcloud, and Cloudflare.
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