When developer Yash Batra chose Golang for an early-stage fintech startup, it seemed like a strategic choice. Golang, or Go, was perceived as fast, modern, and had proven its mettle at tech giants like Google, Kubernetes, and Docker. Yet, just six months in, Batra found himself rewriting the backend in Kotlin.
Batra’s blog post, ‘I Picked Golang for My Startup—Biggest Mistake of My Life,’ has struck a chord with many developers. It highlights a growing disillusionment with Go. ‘Everything we built took twice as long. We weren’t creating value—we were building tools just to build tools,’ Batra lamented. He concluded that while Go might be suitable for building the next Prometheus, it isn’t ideal for startups seeking agility and expressiveness.
Shifting Sentiment
Batra’s experience is a microcosm of a broader shift in developer sentiment. Ian Lance Taylor, a long-standing Go maintainer at Google, recently left the company. In his farewell note, Taylor remarked, ‘Go has reached the status of being just another programming language.’ While this signifies maturity, it also means Go is no longer the standout choice.
Taylor acknowledged that Go is far from finished and will continue to evolve, but he noted that the programming landscape has changed. In today’s fast-paced environment, Go’s minimalism can be more of a hindrance than a help, especially for startups.
A Deeper Dive
Go’s origin is rooted in engineering excellence, designed in 2007 by Rob Pike, Ken Thompson, and Robert Griesemer at Google. It aimed to simplify systems programming with strong concurrency support and lean syntax. Initially hailed as ‘the C of the cloud,’ Go was popular for infrastructure tools and cloud-native microservices.
However, by 2022, developers began re-evaluating Go’s utility. Blogs like ‘Lies we tell ourselves to keep using Golang’ suggest that Go is better suited as a prototyping language or an entry-level language. Early adopters are moving away, citing ecosystem limitations, hiring challenges, and poor ergonomics in AI workflows.
Why Developers Are Moving On
Taylor’s departure, coupled with blog posts like Batra’s, raises questions about Go’s future. More developers are opting for languages like Kotlin, Rust, and emerging ones like Zig, which offer modern features and flexibility.
Despite criticism, Go still has a dedicated fanbase. However, common frustrations persist. Go’s verbose error handling and the requirement for explicit error checks lead to repetitive code. Its ‘no frameworks’ philosophy means developers often reinvent the wheel.
Hiring Go developers is also challenging. The talent pool is smaller than for Java, Python, or JavaScript, and onboarding new developers is time-intensive. Developers are hesitant to invest time in a language with limited job opportunities, especially when AI tools struggle to generate idiomatic Go code.
Emerging Alternatives
Languages like Zig, Kotlin, and Rust are gaining traction. Zig offers clean syntax and high performance without Go’s baggage, compiling to native code without garbage collection and including async/await support. Kotlin is praised for its rich ecosystem, including powerful ORM and Spring Boot integration. Rust is favored for performance and safety, despite its steep learning curve.
A Niche Role
Despite growing criticism, Go remains relevant in infrastructure and systems engineering. It’s still the language of choice for building cloud-native tools and lightweight APIs. Many engineers argue that Go was never meant for rapid product iteration but for stability and scalability.
‘Go’s simplicity is its power, but also its curse,’ noted one user. ‘It’s not trying to be Python. It’s trying to be reliable.’ As Taylor aptly said, the programming environment is always changing, and languages must evolve or face obsolescence.
Note: This article is inspired by content from https://analyticsindiamag.com/ai-features/why-developers-are-quietly-quitting-golang/. It has been rephrased for originality. Images are credited to the original source.