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Why Go is Popular Right Now and Why I Started Learning Go as a Node.js Developer

Mihai Farcas on October 22, 2024

As a Node.js developer for over a decade, I've built countless web applications, APIs, and microservices. Node.js has been my go-to language for it...
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IncomingLegend

Go might be faster than Node, but that isn't exactly an achievement... you can literally write the exact same JS code, line for line, but change the runtime to either Bun or Deno and you will get better performance than with Node... Also Go might be popular among developers but sadly its not nearly as popular in the enterprise space which is dominated by C# and Java, and while that might not be a bad thing you should still consider options that could advance your career, so think carefully about what you're trying to achieve with this hobby of yours

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Mihai Farcas

Like I said in the article, a lot of the recent popularity is also fueled by Kubernetes and Kubernetes related development. So it is gaining traction with the enterprise. I agree it's not as popular as Java or C#, but still there are a lot of jobs out there.

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IncomingLegend

chiar si in Romania C# si Java sunt la putere, daca te uiti pe ejobs trebuie sa ai mare noroc sa vezi ceva legat de Go...

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Mihai Farcas

To gauge a language or technology's popularity, I look at its open-source activity, community engagement, and tooling. Strong growth and a vibrant open-source ecosystem, with lots of new tools emerging, usually indicate that enterprises will eventually adopt it, even if they're slower to react. I prefer to focus on technologies with this kind of momentum, especially if I want to avoid legacy projects. There are jobs out there, I was contacted multiple times regarding opportunities involving Golang.

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amiceli

Currently I hesitate between Go and Rust to play with a new lang for fun.
You add points to Go ;).

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akzaisme

Rust is good. But the compile time and cross-compilation is just better on Go. Those cheap multi-core arm64 servers are really good with Golang.

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IncomingLegend

Rust is an absolute nightmare to write and read as a human being...

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Mihai Farcas

Thank you!

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Clayton Kehoe

I really like go as well. It took me a bit to really "get" the language but once you do it's powerful and enjoyable to use. My only complaint is testing - it's much easier to test in almost any language. Go does force you to think about testing in the design though which is a net positive.

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Mihai Farcas

That was my experience as well!

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Ekemini Samuel

Great article Mihai, welcome to the Go space 😎

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Mihai Farcas

Thank you!

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YukiOnishi

I started using Go after working with Node.js, and it’s been great. Learning Go has really helped me deepen my backend knowledge, and I definitely want to keep using it in the future.

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Mihai Farcas

That's great! and that's exactly how I feel about it!

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Sababa T

It’s interesting how you’ve embraced Go’s strict typing and minimalist error handling, as those can be game changers in improving code quality.

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Mihai Farcas

Thanks! Considering making a video about it in the future on my Let's Talk Dev YouTube channel youtube.com/@letstalkdev

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Deepak Mohan

I was a java developer for 10 years and transitioned into Go 2 years ago. It took me no time to start with it.

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Mihai Farcas

Yes, you can choose to either go with a traditional OOP approach or a functional-lite approach. It's very flexible.

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Ola Ajibode

Thanks for the piece. Just wondering as a data focused engineer, if data processing or transformations will be faster if built with Go.

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Mihai Farcas

Depends on the complexity of your use case. You can interact with most - if not all - databases from Go. There are also some libraries for data frames, comparable to what you can find in Python, however, they might not be as mature or complete. As a language it is definitely faster than Python.

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Wilmela

I started learning Go about 2 months ago and I've completed few learning fullstack apps using React/Nextjs for frontend. I think it's worth it.

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Mihai Farcas

That's awesome! I think so too!

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elanatframework • Edited

It is better to check the CodeBehind Framework before you start Go.

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Sterin Saji

I see nothing but Yapping 😂

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Mihai Farcas

Well, my other posts don't get nearly as many views ... so what can I say ...