10 Reasons to learn Golang programming language

Go or Golang is a widely-adopted programming language that has gained immense popularity in the developer community. It is regarded as one of the most powerful languages, and is the language of choice for a variety of use cases. Here are ten compelling reasons to learn and embrace Go:

1. Statically typed: Golang is a statically typed programming language, which requires that all variables be explicitly associated with a data type that reflects the value it holds. This data type can be associated either explicitly or implicitly, with the Go compiler inferring the data type where necessary. Examples of this are provided below, with explicit data types preceding those inferred implicitly.

//data type of x is int (explicit)

var x int

x = 10

//data type inferrence

var x = 10 //data type of x is int

x:= 10 //data type of x is int

2. Strongly typed: Golang is a strongly typed language, in which the Go compiler strictly checks the types associated with variables. Once a variable is associated with a data type, the compiler does not permit a value of a different type to be assigned to it. Moreover, arithmetic and logical operations on variables of different data types are not allowed.

var x int = 4

var s string = "five"

var result = x + s //will not work

The following will work because two integers can be added together.

var sum = x + 10 //will work

3. Compiled Language: Golang is a compiled programming language, allowing for the conversion of code written in a high-level language to platform-specific machine code. This makes applications written in Golang run faster than those written in an interpreted language such as Python. The Golang compiler verifies the code written and builds the application into an executable by creating machine code.

4. Fast Compile Time: The speed of Golang's compiler allows developers to be more productive and efficient. It enables developers to quickly see the results of their code without having to wait for an extended period of time, making coding in Golang an enjoyable experience.

5. Garbage Collection: Golang is a programming language which utilises a Garbage Collector (GC) to manage the memory of its variables, alleviating the burden on developers to manually allocate and free memory in their code. The GC is unique to Go, and is highly effective in efficiently clearing unused variables.

6.Built-in Concurrency Support: Golang provides built-in support for concurrent tasks by eliminating the need for external packages. Goroutines are functions that can be executed simultaneously and are easily implemented by adding the 'go' keyword to the function call. To ensure efficient use of concurrency, there are various mechanisms such as data sharing and mutual locks.

7. Built-in Packages: Golang's standard library is comprehensive and includes everything necessary to develop a production-ready application. The library contains a variety of standard packages, such as json encoding/decoding, http for web development, built-in unit testing capabilities, logging, date time, and io, among others. While there are many packages available to extend the functionality of the standard library, the internal packages are sufficiently robust to construct and deploy a quality application.

8.Golang Toolings: The Golang software includes a range of tools that make coding simpler for developers. These include Gofmt, which formats code to make it more aesthetically pleasing and comprehensible, as well as godoc, which generates documents based on the code comments. Additionally, there are testing tools for creating optimized and effective code.

9. Simplicity: Golang's simplicity makes it easy to write code that is highly efficient, with minimal effort. As opposed to other programming languages which require developers to think deeply and write complex code in order to achieve the desired level of efficiency, Golang streamlines the process and allows for the rapid creation of well-performing applications.

10. Community: Given its open source nature and backing by a major player such as Google, Golang has been readily embraced in the programming community. The language also enjoys the support of a vibrant and helpful community of developers, which contribute to an ever-growing suite of packages. This makes Golang an attractive option for aspiring developers looking to create production-ready software.