The Power of Go | Beyond Coding Podcast #50

Simplicity

The Go programming language offers a unique balance between simplicity and complexity, making it appealing for developers who prefer understanding the intricacies of their code. Hannes de Jager contrasts Go with frameworks like Spring, highlighting how Go's lack of abstraction allows for a deeper understanding of the codebase, which can be both a challenge and a benefit 1. Kevin van den broek shares his experience, noting that Go's straightforward nature enabled him to confidently run services in production within a month, unlike his experience with Springboot 1. This simplicity is further enhanced by Go's ability to compile into static binaries, making deployment across various platforms seamless 2.

When I had about three years of experience with Springboot before I really understood what was happening and really started diving more into internals and would go within a month, I was running my first services in production and feeling completely confident with it and what everything was doing.

--- Kevin van den broek

The ease of cross-compilation in Go is another advantage, as Goos van den Bekerom points out, allowing developers to adapt to different architectures with minimal effort 2.

   

Efficiency

Go's efficiency and error handling are often praised, though they come with their own set of challenges. Patrick Akil and Hannes de Jager discuss how Go's lightweight nature reduces memory usage significantly compared to languages like Java, which can lead to cost savings in cloud environments 3. However, Go's error handling and garbage collection are sometimes criticized, especially when compared to Rust, which is known for its efficiency but has a steeper learning curve 3.

If you compare go, you'll be productive probably within a week. Whereas with Rust, you fight with a borrow checker for a couple of months. And if you survive, if your self esteem survives it, then you start to love rust, and then it really works for you because it's a really powerful language.

--- Hannes de Jager

The discussion also touches on hiring practices, emphasizing the importance of hiring versatile engineers who can adapt to different languages, rather than focusing solely on language-specific skills 4.