Go was born in 2007 at Google. In recent years, it has become a trend in Russia as well: companies like Ozon have hired hundreds of Go developers to build new platforms with speed, reliability, and agile development.
Managers understand that progress stalls when old infrastructure doesn't allow optimization and new channels. Go provides a refreshing technological foundation.
Go is a Universal Language
Go allows building "cool things": new platforms quickly, thanks to performance, simplicity, and concurrency. Main uses: network software, utilities, and backend. Suitable for multi-threaded and performance-critical applications.
Network Software Development and Maintenance
Networks are business core: file sharing, database access, integrations. Go is memory-efficient, runs many connections in parallel, and offers many packages for optimization and integration.
Cloud Service Development
The cloud model (SaaS) replaces installations. Webinars, CRM, APIs – with Go it's easy to create, process, and manage RESTful APIs using ready-made packages for routes and request processing.
Go for Utilities and Microservices
Go is excellent for microservices thanks to a built-in and consistent toolset, and smooth work with infrastructure and message encoding. Examples: Sampler for metric visualization, NYT's framework set for building APIs.
Docker, one of the famous projects, is written in Go and demonstrates efficient automation.
Go and Application Optimization
Developers convert existing applications to Go to improve performance and simplify maintenance. The compact code structure reduces dependency issues.
DevOps Applications
Go is used for monitoring, big data processing, writing helpers, blockchain, and more, without requiring expensive hardware. Example: Prometheus for monitoring is written in Go.
Golang for Finance and Cloud
Many banks have moved to Go to build financial microservices, super-applications, and related services, with good performance and scale.
Go and Game Development
Although not intended for this, Go's simplicity has spawned game engines. It's possible to write concurrent code for multi-user games (e.g., Greenlight).
Golang Advantages
What can be built with Go?
- Cloud web services with Go kit, Micro, Gizmo, Kite, Goa, Caddy
- REST API with Revel, Gorilla, Gin, Martini, Beego
- RPC API using RPC, Twirp, Spiral, Gorilla
- GraphQL with graphql-go, gqlgen, thunder
- Serverless functions with GCF, Sparta, Gordon
- WebAssembly / UI with Hugo, Vugu, TinyGo, Vecty
- Robotics, IoT, and embedded systems with Gobot, Mainflux, TinyGo, EMBD
- CLI tools with Cobra, cli
With gomobile, mobile development; Lorca/Wails/Fyne for desktop; Ebiten/Pixel/G3N for games; bots for Discord/Telegram/Slack and more.
What Go is Not Intended For
Go is less suitable for full GUIs, but excellent for logic layers and performance underneath.
15 years have passed since it was created – it doesn't replace C but has become one of the best for web development.
