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Google has released an updated version of its Go programming language. According Russ Cox, a Google principal engineer, the release features four key improvements:
- The compiler and language runtime are now written in Go instead of C.
- The language now has low-latency, concurrent garbage collection.
- C or C++ applications can now call Go libraries.
- Go has been ported to Linux on a 54-bit PowerPC and to Linux and Darwin on 64-bit ARM system.
“We have seen some serious traction in adoption of Go outside of Google,” said Al Hilwa, an analyst with market research firm IDC. “Many major cloud system software projects like Docker and Cloud Foundry are using Go today. It is good to see that all of Go is now done in Go. With built-in garbage collection, which is improved in the latest release, it offers a distinct advantage in productivity over C/C++.”
Cox added, “We think the language itself is pretty close to done. We made real changes to the language in 1.1 and 1.2, but since then 1.3 had no language changes and 1.4 and 1.5 had very tiny ones.”
