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Have you ever struggled with a complex programming language that just isn't efficient enough to meet your needs?
If you have been using languages like Java or Python, you will understand the issues that can arise from verbosity and performance limitations.
Many developers have encountered the same problems, especially when it comes to large applications, like those found in financial enterprises.
Golang, or the Go programming language as it is sometimes called, is an open-source, statically typed, compiled programming language co-created by Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson at Google.
It has a great balance between simplicity and performance, making it ideal for building backends that power massive amounts of data to facilitate things like real-time payments and data handling in fintech.
Let's look at exactly what the Go or Golang programming language is used for and what makes it so well-suited for web development, microservices, and cloud infrastructure.
If you need assistance with your project, at Trio, we connect you with individual senior Golang developers for staff augmentation and dedicated fintech specialist teams.
Go is a cross-platform, open-source programming language designed by Google engineers who were frustrated with the trade-offs in existing languages.
The goal was a language that compiled as fast as a scripting language could be written, executed as fast as C, and handled concurrency without the complexity of Java's thread model.
What we have ended up with is a statically typed, compiled language with garbage collection, built-in concurrency primitives, and a standard library comprehensive enough to build production servers without external dependencies.
| Feature | Go | Python | Java | C++ |
| Type system | Statically typed | Dynamically typed | Statically typed | Statically typed |
| Execution | Compiled (to machine code) | Interpreted | Compiled (to JVM bytecode) | Compiled |
| Speed | Very fast | Slower execution | Fast (JVM overhead) | Maximum speed |
| Concurrency | Built-in goroutines/channels | GIL limits native concurrency | Thread-based | Thread-based |
| Memory | Automatic garbage collection | Automatic garbage collection | Automatic garbage collection | Manual management |
| Learning curve | Gentle, minimal syntax | Very easy | Moderate, verbose | Steep, complex |
| Classes/Objects | No (structs + interfaces) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Compile time | Very fast | N/A (interpreted) | Slower | Slow |
When it comes to syntax and readability, Python is renowned as the most approachable language. Go is simple compared to most alternatives but uses a more traditional syntax reminiscent of C.
This means that it can be slightly more verbose than Python but is still easy to learn and understand.
Java, on the other hand, is known for being very verbose and requiring a significant amount of boilerplate code.
Regarding performance, Go and Java are both compiled languages, which gives them an edge over interpreted languages like Python in enterprise fintech applications and similar environments.
Go's lightweight goroutines and efficient memory management produce strong results for concurrent applications. Java's thread-based model can result in higher overhead for these workloads.
Go's ecosystem is still growing rapidly, with strong support for web development, cloud services, and microservices, while Python has a larger selection of libraries in fields like data science and machine learning.
Java has a richer and more mature ecosystem that Golang still has to catch up to.
Related Reading: Golang vs Java
Go was initially developed for networking and infrastructure-related programs. It now finds application across several domains:
Several prominent companies across cloud infrastructure and financial services have adopted Go in production environments.
Google created Go and uses it extensively across its cloud platforms, data infrastructure, and site reliability engineering teams.
Uber also uses Go for implementing libraries, geofence lookup services, and rapidly scaling applications. Its queries-per-second service for geofence lookups was rewritten in Go to handle the scale.
When it comes to financial applications specifically, Capital One's engineering teams adopted Go despite no prior experience with the language. The major appeal was Go's concurrency model, garbage collection, and safety-to-speed ratio.
PayPal is another famous fintech example that uses Go for fraud detection services and to modernize its systems, along with American Express.
American Express. Benjamin Cane, Vice President and Principal Engineer at American Express, credits Go's excellent built-in tooling, testing, benchmarking, and profiling frameworks: "After working on Go, most of our developers don't want to go back to other languages."
Curve, a fintech company, uses Go for its microservices.
This open-source language is a great choice for both senior and junior fintech developers to add to their skillsets.
Go is particularly suitable if you are working on scalable, high-performance applications, since the language is designed for the kind of distributed, concurrent environment most backend engineers encounter, and it can help streamline development processes significantly.
For developers targeting fintech, DevOps, or cloud infrastructure roles, specifically, Go's adoption at so many companies opens many opportunities.
When starting with Golang, or moving over to Go for the first time, there are a couple of things you need to be aware of.
Download and install Go from the official Go website at go.dev. Installation should then be straightforward and follow standard platform conventions for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Once installed, set up your workspace by creating a directory for your projects.
Go uses the GOPATH environment variable to locate your workspace. In your workspace, create three subdirectories: src for source code, pkg for packaged objects, and bin for compiled binaries.
To verify your installation, run a simple program printing like "Hello, World!" and confirm the output.
Once you have confirmed everything works well, install an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) or editor with Go support. Visual Studio Code with the official Go extension, GoLand, and Sublime Text are all popular and well-supported options.
Every Go program starts with a package declaration, where the main package defines an executable program; other packages produce libraries.
Go then uses the import keyword to include dependencies, either from the standard library or external sources.
Functions are defined using the func keyword, and the main function serves as the entry point; variables can be declared using the var keyword or the shorthand := syntax within functions.
Go supports standard control structures like if, for, and switch.
The one meaningful difference our developers have noticed is that instead of while loops, Go uses for for all looping.
It also supports first-class functions, higher-order functions, and closures, which allow for more modular and concise code.
There is much more to Go than this, but by exploring the basics, you should get a solid understanding of the syntax and structure.
One of the biggest reasons developers use Go is its concurrent programming model.
Goroutines are lightweight threads managed by the Go runtime.
To start a goroutine, you will need to use the go keyword followed by a function call. Channels provide a way for goroutines to communicate and synchronize execution, using the make function and the <- operator.
The select statement allows you to wait on multiple channel operations, making complex concurrent task management more straightforward.
This model is significantly simpler and less error-prone than thread-based concurrency in Java or C++.
Go's standard library is quite extensive and can be used for a variety of tasks.
Depending on how you are using Go to create your web services, you will also encounter many more packages from the standard library.
As we have already mentioned, one of the primary uses of Golang is for web development and microservices. There are many reasons for this.
Go offers its standard library alongside frameworks that help you build web applications and APIs. We've already covered the net/http package.
In order to build RESTful APIs and more complex applications, you will need frameworks like Gin or Echo, which give you additional functionality.
Gin offers routing, middleware, and more, making it a popular choice with many Go developers.
Microservices architecture involves breaking down a large application into smaller, independent services that communicate with one another.
To create microservices with Go, you develop each as a separate application handling a specific piece of functionality. These applications then communicate through HTTP or gRPC.
gRPC is a highly efficient framework developed by Google for inter-service communication.
Microservices written in Go benefit from its lightweight concurrency model and efficient execution, making the combination well-suited to high-frequency financial transaction pipelines and event-driven payment processing services.
Go is supported by all major cloud providers. This means that you can deploy and scale applications consistently and rest assured that the language is generally future-proof.
You can containerize your application using Docker for consistent deployment and easy scalability.
Kubernetes provides an orchestration layer for deploying and managing your containerized applications.
Cloud-specific services, including AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Pub/Sub, and Azure Cosmos DB, all have Go SDK support for serverless computing, messaging, and scalability requirements, respectively.
While Go is relatively simple to pick up, there are some more advanced concepts that might prove to be useful in complex financial applications and other industries.
Go can be used for data science, even though Python is actually the most popular choice in that domain. It offers speed and concurrency for processing large datasets efficiently.
The gonum library provides functionalities for linear algebra and data manipulation.
Go is also ideally suited for system programming tasks like building operating system components, network tools, and performance-critical applications like neobanks or even fintech super apps.
Compact binaries and minimal external dependencies are ideal for containerized environments.
To get started with Docker, create a Dockerfile that specifies the environment and dependencies your Go application requires. Once you have your Dockerfile, build and run your Docker image to deploy your application anywhere Docker is supported.
Deploying on Kubernetes involves creating a deployment configuration that specifies the desired state of your application.
Now that we have covered the basics of the Go programming language, you should be able to decide if it is a good option for your fintech app.
Golang offers a wide array of features and is a powerful tool for web development, microservices, system programming, or deploying applications in the cloud. Its simplicity and growing community make it a practical starting point for new developers. Its efficiency also makes it an invaluable tool for engineers building highly scalable systems.
The endorsement from financial services companies, including Capital One, PayPal, and American Express, reflects Go's suitability for regulated, high-throughput environments.
By having so many examples, we can rest assured knowing that it performs well in production fintech environments, stays maintainable, and compiles to something easy to deploy.
At Trio, our Go developers have production experience in fintech and cloud infrastructure. Since they are pre-vetted, you can have access to them in as little as 3-5 days.
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