go_worth_learning.slide

Is Go language actually worth learning?
Red Hat
19 Sep 2023
Tags: golang, go

Pavel Tišnovský <ptisnovs@redhat.com>
Red Hat, Inc.



* Introduction

There are lots of interesting programming languages that you can learn.
The question is, should you perfect them all? The answer is no, of course.

So what about the Go language - is it worth try?

In this presentation we are going to talk about Go's pros (goroutines,
channels, GC, type systems) and cons (a language with attributes taken from the
previous century :)



* Gophers
#The Go gopher was designed by Renee French. (http://reneefrench.blogspot.com/)
#Source https://golang.org/doc/gopher/fiveyears.jpg
#The design and this image is licensed under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attributions license.
.image ./common/fiveyears.jpg _ 900



* Introduction
- Launched in November 2009 by Google
- Rob Pike, Ken Thompson, Robert Griesemer
- More readable replacement for C/C++/Java/...
- Better suits corporations needs
- „Less is more“



* Introduction
- (statically) compiled
- statically typed
- allows cross-compilation
- garbage collected
- built-in concurrency
- strict formatting rules
- type inference



* Usage
- server-side web (PHP, Node.js, Python, Ruby, Java)
- client-side web (compilation to WebAssembly)
- cloud technologies (Docker, Podman, Kubernetes, Kubernetes Operators, MinIO, ...)
- available for all interesting systems
- and most architectures (x86-64, ARMv6, ARMv8, even s390x and PowerPC64 LE)
- custom back end + cgo


* More readable compared to C/C++

- Evolved from C
- Declarations in postfix
- Much faster for parser to parse sources
- Exported symbols begin with Capital letter
- [[https://blog.golang.org/gos-declaration-syntax]]

.code src/syntax_c.go
.code src/syntax_go.go

* More readable compared to C++

- In C++ we don't say "Missing asterisk"
- we say:

    "error C2664:
    'void std::vector<block,std::alocator<_Ty> >::push_back(const block &)':
    cannot convert argument 1 from
    'std::_Vector_iterator<std::_Vector_val<std::_Simple_types<block> > >'
    to 'block &&'"
    
- and i think that's beautiful
- not mine, source:
.link https://goo.gl/Akxjih

* More readable compared to C++

    #include <vector>
    #include <algorithm>
    int main()
    {
        int a;
        std::vector< std::vector <int> > v;
        std::vector< std::vector <int> >::const_iterator it = std::find( v.begin(), v.end(), a );
    }

- gcc -c error.cpp will produce 15786 bytes of output, with a longest line of 330 characters

* Cloud technologies
.link https://www.docker.com/ Docker
.link https://podman.io/ Podman
.link https://kubernetes.io/ Kubernetes
.link https://coreos.com/operators/ Kubernetes Operators
.link https://min.io/ MinIO
.link https://nsq.io/ NSQ
.link https://nats.io/ NATS
.link https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/cloud-computing/openshift OpenShift
.link https://geth.ethereum.org/ Go Ethereum



* Goals
- simplicity
- unambiguity
- performance
- pragmatic
- safer applications (compared to C/C++)
- microservices
- ease to install ("DLL hell" can't happen)
- for DevOps from DevOps
- fast (actually super fast) builds (CI tools like it ;-)



* Attention
- Go is a blend of modern approaches combined with quite old ideas
- explicit error handling
- no generics till version 1.18
- no class-based OOP
- no `try`/`catch`/`finally`
- no ternary operator
- `goto` keyword
- `nil` identifier



* Interfaces are automatically implemented
- "satisfied" in Go lingo

.image ./images/interface.svg _ 500



* Go vs C(++)
- stronger type system
- no text substitution macros
- no header files
- package system + checks
- safer memory operations + GC
- standardized framework for tests
- stricter rules (`++`/`--`, pointers, ...)
- no exception handling control structures (yet?)
- no generic data types till Go 1.18



* But... we are in 21th century!

.image ./images/ural.jpg _ 700



* But... we are in 21th century!

- Multi-core CPUs
- Distributed systems
- Memory locality
- Readability



* Multi-core CPUs
.image ./images/perf.jpg _ 700



* Multi-core CPUs
.image ./images/Amdahl.png



* Bit of history

- 60's: insufficient program flow control
- "GOTO considered harmful"
- solved by introducing structured programming
- -> new syntax

* Bit of history

- 70's: insufficient state control
- solved by introducing OOP
- -> new syntax

* Bit of history
- 2000: insufficient concurrency control
- not solved for a long time
- Go's goroutines + channels
- Python's + JavaScript's async
- -> new syntax

* Support for concurrency

- Communicating sequential processes (a formal language etc. etc.)
- "Don't communicate by sharing memory; share memory by communicating"
- So called _goroutines_
- Channels



* Concurrency and/or parallelism

- Serial: runs tasks in an order with one CPU core
- Concurrent: runs many tasks simultaneously with a less number of CPU cores (or even 1)
- Parallel: runs n tasks simultaneously with n CPU cores

* Concurrency

- when multiple tasks can run in overlapping periods
- needs only one CPU core
- main problem: interruptions

* Parallelism

- needs more than one CPU core
- main problem: isolation
- second problem: coordination

* Solutions for concurrency and parallelism

- processes
- threads
- coroutines


* Solutions for concurrency and parallelism

- processes
- threads
- **goroutines*
- coroutines


* Goroutines + channels is a way to ... Go

- Deadlocks are not such a big problem then
.image ./images/deadlock.gif _ 700



* Memory locality

- True structures
- True value types
- No object headers
- Java: no value types, no structures, object headers


* Memory locality

- RAM is no longer "Random Access Memory"

* Memory locality

.image ./images/computer_latency_1.jpg _ 300


* Memory locality and access times

- We humans are bad comparing very small time periods
- Dtto for other units (length, money etc.)


* Memory locality and access times

.image ./images/computer_latency_2.png _ 500


* Go and KISS principle

* Dynamic devel teams
.image ./images/teams.png _ 500



* Dynamic devel teams
- stability
- on source code level: if it compiles in version X, it will compile in version X+1 too
- OTOH: https://pythonclock.org/
- readability



* go-fmt
- Gofmt’s style is no one’s favorite, yet gofmt is everyone’s favorite. — Rob Pike
- standard tool



* Wanna be mainstream?
- [[http://pypl.github.io/PYPL.html]]
- [[https://hackernoon.com/10-best-programming-languages-to-learn-in-2019-e5b05af4a972]]
- [[https://insights.dice.com/2018/12/17/5-programming-languages-consider-learning-2019/]]
- [[https://www.rankred.com/new-programming-languages-to-learn/]]



* Popularity
- [[https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted-languages-loved]]
- [[https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted-languages-dreaded]]
- [[https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted-languages-wanted]]



* Popularity chart
.image ./images/popularity.png  _ 600



* So...is it worth to spend time learning Go?
- networking - YES
- (micro)services - YES
- scalable systems - YES
- you like strict formatting rules - YES
- you like strong type systems - YES
- you like minimalism - YES
- pretty fast compilation - YES
- the simplest deployment - YES
- guaranteed source code compatibility - YES



* So...is it worth to spend time learning Go?
- you like classic (broken) class-bases OOP - NO
- you like baroque languages - NO, enjoy C++
- you like inconsistent languages - NO, enjoy Perl
- you like homoiconic languages - NO, LISP/Scheme/Clojure are better then
- you want to manage memory ourself - NO
- you like to have buffer overflows - NO, there are "better" choices
- you like really very strong type system & fast language - Rust



#last slide
* More Gophers
#The Go gopher was designed by Renee French. (http://reneefrench.blogspot.com/)
#Source https://golang.org/doc/gopher/bumper.png
#The design and this image is licensed under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attributions license.
.image ./images/bumper.png  _ 900

# finito