Chapter 1: The Evolution of Go

Over the past decade, Go has seen substantial enhancements in performance. The dedication of its developers has positioned Go among the swiftest programming languages available.

Ben Hoyt, a software engineer hailing from New Zealand, has an impressive background, having worked with companies such as Canonical, Compass, and TripAdvisor. His journey into programming began with his father, who introduced him to the Forth language. In his early days, he developed a Forth compiler and a small operating system, nurturing a lasting interest in various computer science domains.

I had the opportunity to craft this article due to the engagement it garnered on Medium. One of Ben’s notable contributions is GoAWK, an AWK interpreter with CSV support, developed in Go. Recently, he shared an intriguing article where he benchmarked Go’s performance from version 1.0 (2012) to version 1.22 (2024).

As a result of this 12-year span, the findings are quite remarkable. For instance, a benchmark measuring word counting revealed an 8x increase in speed. Even more astonishing is a small looping application that sums numbers, achieving a 24x acceleration!

This consistent improvement indicates that over the last 12 years, Go has continually become faster. When examining other benchmarks, Go often outpaces languages like Julia, OCaml, Ruby, Python, and PHP. In some instances, such as the Primes benchmark, Go even surpasses Rust.

This is certainly thrilling news. Go is not just a robust programming language, but it ranks among the fastest compilers in the industry. If you’ve previously used an older version of Go and found yourself waiting for tasks to complete, those days are behind us.

For those who appreciate efficiency, the latest Go updates allow you to brew a coffee while waiting for your code to execute. This minor inconvenience is a testament to the language's performance—enough time to make coffee while watching a movie, thanks to streaming services with ad breaks.

While a brief 30-second advertisement might not seem burdensome, it’s a reminder that every second counts. Witnessing the speed at which Go operates is truly impressive.

Only a small percentage of readers finish lengthy articles like this one—congratulations on making it through! It’s a pleasure to discuss coding with you, my favorite audience. I hope you’ll stay connected by subscribing!

By the way, it’s fantastic to see your enthusiasm for Golang! I’ve even created a Go-themed card game called "Summon The JSON: Go." You can place your orders now!

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Also, consider joining the new Go (Golang) Programming Guild group on LinkedIn, which welcomes all enthusiasts and creators in the Go community.