Following from my post Programming and web development tools – too much reliance on Google?, I am now left pondering about the Go programming language, a “systems programming language” developed by Google.
On one hand, the premise of Go is quite interesting. While still in its infancy, Go proposes to solve the problem of designing systems software for multicore machines and its syntax seeks to be as clear and as fun as the syntax of dynamic languages such as Python while actually being a static language.
On the other hand, it is yet another Google tool and one can’t help thinking that Google really has got their fingers into many different pies when it comes to coding projects (Google Android OS, Google Chrome browser, Chrome OS, Google Web Toolkit, Google Ajax APIs etc) and they are bound to ditch a few of them along the way. Apparently, they do not use Go yet for their own systems so who’s to say this won’t be dead in the water in a couple of years?
So, is Go on your list of programming languages to keep an eye on? On your list of programing languages to learn? Or on your list of programming languages to forget about?
I think Go’s something to keep an eye on. The people behind it have an excellent track record whilst at Bell Labs and http://swtch.com/~rsc/thread/ shows that this CSP approach to parallel processing has a long and successful history. Google is really just their current home as Bell Labs shrunk, they’d have done another language in the style of Alef, Limbo, etc., wherever they were.
Comment by Ralph Corderoy — August 12, 2010 @ 12:53 pm