What Makes Go So Different?

Go is currently one of the most desirable languages to use. Here is its secret ingredient for success

Go vs. other languages (Illustration by Author)

Introduction

Programming languages can clearly be considered as a primary tool in every programmer’s arsenal. Thus, we tend to associate ourselves with the chosen ones. By that, I mean we are forming massive communities, writing articles, making YouTube videos, mascots, and more importantly — memes. Just kidding, and yet it's hard to deny the existence of some close, almost personal connection between us and these abstract tools.

Gopher look (Illustration by the author using Go’s iconic mascot)

As you might have guessed, this article will be one of many that also addresses a widely popular, new-school, and overall pretty unique programming language named Go. However, in order to be like Go — simple, different, and useful — I won’t retell what has already been written by others. I’d rather attempt to form a new vision by analyzing Golang’s design solution, the context of its appearance, its distinct features, and finally, what it can be effectively used for today.

Brief overview

Here are a few theses to give you a taste for it:

Go is different, yet clearly resembling.
Go is distinct, yet featureless.
Go is young, yet widespread already.
Go is small, yet powerful.
Go is simple, yet quite complex.
Go is running on its own, yet as a number of instances.
Go is a language, yet also an idea.

Now let’s explore each of them in depth.

Creation Context

In order to fully comprehend Golang’s nature, let’s dive into the context of its creation. Since at the time Google was facing issues, which it couldn’t overcome with the existing tools, Go was born in a strong need for changes:

“The goals of the Go project were to eliminate the slowness and clumsiness of software development at Google, and thereby to make the…