When it comes to microservices development, bigger isn’t always better. Although programming languages like Python and JavaScript are extremely popular amongst developers across the world, Golang, although not as well-known, is quickly becoming a favorite. Being relatively new, it lacks the cutting-edge syntax as other languages, which is probably why the language is not well-known. But with several enterprise giants now functioning on Golang, the language is quickly becoming one of the most desired languages to learn in the development world – especially in the world of microservices – with Github placing it as the third most popular language.

Golang and microservices

As the world realizes the benefits of building applications as a set of small services – instead of building one big monolithic application that is difficult to update and modernize, microservices are getting increasingly prevalent in the world of software development. Since each service runs in its own process and communicates with other processes using different protocols, it allows for different aspects of the software to be developed autonomously and deployed independently.

When it comes to building microservices, Golang offers capabilities that make it easy to

create loosely coupled services, giving developers the autonomy they need to develop, deploy, and scale different services. With Golang, developers can create applications with granular and autonomous lifecycles, enabling long-term agility and better maintainability of their large, complex, and highly scalable systems.

What makes Golang a winner

Golang, although a relatively new kid on the block, is quickly gaining extreme popularity amongst small and big companies alike.

Today, a melee of giants like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. run on Golang, and for good reason.

Distributing a Go application is as easy as downloading and running a binary, which is why it is extremely easy to onboard new developers who are familiar with other languages. Not only does Golang support fast code building, but its large and powerful standard library and unmatched parallelization and concurrency primitives make it a real winner.

Here’s looking at five reasons that make Golang one of the best options for microservices:

1. It is simple to learn: Golang is extremely easy to pick up, learn and start building, and offers a wide range of capabilities for users to get accustomed to the language – quickly and easily. Golang’s short learning curve, simple syntax, growing ecosystem of partners, communities, and tools, and straightforward build process are some of the biggest drivers for its rapid adoption, making it an ideal option for developing microservices applications.
2. It supports dynamic assignment: Although primarily a static language, Golang’s object-oriented development is extremely flexible and supports seamless dynamic assignment. This opensource programming language’s path to data abstraction, rich third-party support, and robustness of its command-line tool makes for a language that has a simple syntax but powerful capabilities.
3. The concurrency feature is ideal for microservices: If you have large programs that are made up of many small components, Golang’s concurrency features make it easy to handle each component efficiently. By allowing smaller programs to be run concurrently, Golang’s RPC frameworks, goroutines, and channels aid in better communication between sub-services, better execution, and enhanced productivity of various machines and cores.
4. GoKit solves common distributed system problems: Golang’s programming toolkit GoKit sets the stage for coherent distributed programming. This comprehensive toolkit delivers the ideal combination of packages and best practices, offering a robust and reliable way of building microservices for organizations of any size. It can operate in any heterogeneous SOA and integrates seamlessly with existing infrastructures – requiring no specific tools or mandates.
5. The RPC framework makes building microservices a cakewalk: Microservices are usually backed by RPC frameworks such as REST and gRPC. Golang’s package RPC provides much-needed access to the exported methods of an object, making it visible as a service across the network. Once registration is done, exported methods of the object can be accessible remotely.

As microservices enable better maintainability in complex, large, and highly scalable systems, a language like Golang is an ideal partner for building microservices-based applications.

Built for cloud and microservices, the language lets you create applications with independently deployable services. The simplicity and reliability of Golang and features such as dynamic assignment, concurrency, GoKit, and the RPC framework make it one of the best ways to build a variety of microservices architectures and applications.

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