An Introduction to Go
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Google created Go because existing systems programming languages did not provide efficient compilation, execution, and ease of programming simultaneously. Go combines the ease of dynamically typed languages with the efficiency and safety of compiled, statically typed languages. It has features for concurrency and garbage collection that improve on C, as well as syntax inspired by Python, JavaScript, and Pascal.
An Introduction to Go
- 1. An Introduction to Go Imesh Gunaratne Product Lead, WSO2 Private PaaS Committer & PMC Member, Apache Stratos
- 2. Why Google started Go? ● No major systems language has emerged in over a decade ● Computers are enormously quicker but software development is not faster ● C tradition header file based dependency management is much cleaner and faster in compilation ● Dynamically typed languages such as Python, JS are much easier to use ● Fundamental concepts such as garbage collection & parallel computation were not supported well in popular system languages https://golang.org/doc/faq
- 3. Why Google started Go? ● None of the system languages were providing following three aspects in one: ○ Efficient compilation ○ Efficient execution ○ Ease of programming ● Go is an attempt to combine the ease of programming of an interpreted, dynamically typed language with the efficiency and safety of a statically typed, compiled language. https://golang.org/doc/faq
- 4. Go ancestors ● Mostly in the C family (basic syntax) ● Input from Python, JS ● Significant input from Pascal/Modula/Oberon family (declarations, packages) ● Ideas from CSP style languages Newsqueak, Limbo (concurrency) In every respect it’s a new language built by thinking what programmers do and how to make programming much efficient and more fun! https://golang.org/doc/faq
- 5. Go = C + Python + JS It’s more like C with Python/JS style syntax
- 6. What Go provides? ● A systems programming language ● Compiled, directly compile into binary like C ● Binary is platform specific ● Statically typed, but support dynamic declarations ● No virtual machine like in Java ● No exception handling, uses multi-value returns ● No classes, use structs with functions ● Not object oriented, but has support for interfaces, more like functional programming ● CSP-style concurrent programming ● Provides garbage collection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(programming_language)
- 7. Advantages of Go ● Fast compilation, a large program compiles in seconds ● Type system has no hierarchy, so no time is spent defining the relationships between types ● Improved dependency analysis compared to C-style include files ● Fully garbage collected ● Fundamental support for concurrent execution & communication ● Designed to implement system software to be run on multi-core machines https://golang.org/doc/faq
- 8. Say Hello World in Go Constructs & Syntax
- 10. Standard Constructs Most common constructs used in other languages
- 21. Go Specific Constructs Constructs introduced in Go
- 24. Range (for each) http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7782411/is-there-a-foreach-in-go
- 28. References ● Golang FAQ: https://golang.org/doc/faq ● Go, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(programming_language) ● Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP), Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communicating_sequential_processes ● Static typing, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_system#Static_typing ● Dynamic programming language, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_programming_language ● Variadic function, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variadic_function ● Closure, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closure_(computer_programming)