“Go” – A New Open Source Programming Language from Google



2009 November, 11th
Mihaela Lica
Mihaela Lica
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The “Go” programming language is Google’s latest release designed to combine the ease of programming of an interpreted, dynamically typed language with the efficiency and safety of a statically typed, compiled language. It also aims to be modern, with support for networked and multicore computing. The new programming language will also allow for faster coding, type and memory safety, and lots more.

Go is very similar to C and C++, and even as fast as programs written in these languages, but it is more versatile, and it could even be used within Web browsers. For example, The Go Programming Language Web site is built with Go, but Go could build server software as well, for example to support Gmail and other Google venues. Google hopes that Go will replace JavaScript to run software in a Web browser.

“Our target was to get as close as we could to C or C++,” said Rob Pike, a principal software engineer working on Go. “They’re reasonably close–programs run about 20 percent to 30 percent slower right now.”

Google’s new release has received some attention from the media, with CNET News in-depth coverage, InformationWeek reports, the usual lazy-for-the-sake-of-traffic TechCrunch mention (with no in-depth analysis, just a sloppy “in-your-face” announcement backed-up by a quote from Google’s blog post about Go), and others.

Go boardSurprisingly, the coverage of the news is not extensive, although an author noted that if it catches on, Go would be the first major systems language to emerge in a decade.

The name “Go” was apparently inspired by the board game with the same name that originated in ancient China more than 2,500 years ago. Like the game, Google’s Go is complex despite the simple rules.

The team that worked to make Google Go possible numbers, among others, Kenneth Thompson, an original creator of Unix; Rob Pike – principal engineer at Google; Robert Griesemer, who helped write Java’s HotSpot compiler and V8, the Chrome browser’s JavaScript engine; Russ Cox, a Plan 9 developer; and Ian Lance Taylor, who has worked on improving the widely used open-source GCC compiler.

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Mihaela Lica is senior partner at Pamil Visions PR and editor at Everything PR. She is a widely cited authority on search engine optimization and public relations issues (BBC News, Force for Good, Reuters and others), with an experience of over 7 years in online PR and SEO. Mihaela writes for SitePoint, Search Engine Journal, and other online publications. She also maintains a personal blog called eWritings. Follow Mig on Twitter or send her an email at mig [at] pamil-visions [dot] com.

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