Google Releases New Programming Language "Go" 2009

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By Dan Hope Nov 12th, 2009

Google is notorious for doing things its own way, so it only seems appropriate that the company has just released an entirely new programming language developed by in-house programmers. Frankly, it’s a little surprising that it took them this long; most of the commonly used programming languages are decades old and don’t reflect the latest advances in computing. The new Google language, called Go, aims to remedy that.

Google created the new language in response to problems and restrictions they found in existing programming languages that made it difficult to make Google services run at peak efficiency. Instead of making work-arounds and patching problems, they decided to simply design a language that would allow for greater flexibility in today’s Web-centric world. In fact, Go is intended to interface directly with Google’s Chrome browser so that Go-based programs can run directly inside the browser.

Go turned out to be everything Google desired, and it has the added benefit of being incredibly easy and fast to use. If you’re interested in just how fast a build can go in Go, check out the video at the bottom of the page. You’re bound to be impressed. If you want to dive right in, check out the tutorial and specifications.

Go is completely open source, like so many other Google projects, which means that it could be picked up by anyone in the programming community and could possibly become a major programming language. That all depends on the reaction Go receives among programmers. But regardless of their impressions, Go should be a huge boon to Google. The additional efficiency should make their services even faster and Google even more productive.

Now all that remains to be done is to come up with a better mascot. Yep, that brown blob at the top of the post is Gordon the Go Gopher, the language’s official mascot.