I love Go, but it’s quite obvious that it’s not as well known at all as JavaScript, Python, C++, etc. As a 15 year old aspiring Web Developer, I want to know whether learning Go is just going to be a (albeit cool) useless skill, or whether it’s going to be a language I can get a job doing. So in this presentation we will be doing some comparisons between Go, JavaScript, Python, and C++.
Reddit Subscribers (reddit is a good gauge of at least interest in something):
While /r/golang has a very low amount of subscribers compared to /r/javascript and /r/python, it’s still very impressive for such a small (and not used in education) language. I would wager that many of the /r/python subscribers are students compared to the other languages listed.
Google Trends interest (Python not Available):
Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term. A value of 50 means that the term is half as popular. Likewise a score of 0 means the term was less than 1% as popular as the peak.
Go is rising in popularity
While JavaScript and C++ popularity decreases (with JavaScript leveling out recently), Go is becoming much more popular, as it becomes noticed by more people. Even though Go is not a super new player (2011 first stable), it’s quickly becoming a very hip language, liked by both curmudgeonly programmers and latte-sipping ones alike.
Age
Go is very new
Go is a very new language compared to Python3 and NodeJS, however it’s still had time to age and is not dangerously new (in the opinion of the writer).
Popularity (Stack overflow Developer Survey 2017)
You have to go fairly far down to find Go, and JavaScript, Python and C++ beat the tar out of Go in this category.
Ratio of Reddit Subscribers to Popularity %
Relative to Popularity, Golang has a lot of interest on reddit.
Most Loved (Stack overflow Developer Survey 2017)
Go does great in this category, understandably. Go is liked more than C++, JavaScript, and even Python! Developer interest is very important to whether a language will succeed.
Most Popular by Web Developer Occupation
These results saddened me. JavaScript is extremely popular, with, as well as Python, with Go at only 4.9%, however, I would think JavaScript would not be as developer if we are only considering backend developers and not React, Vue, etc.
Top Paying
This is another category where Go did very well. With an average yearly salary of $64,516, it compares well to JavaScript, C++ and Python.
In summation, Go is for sure less popular in general than C++, JS, and Python, however if you can find a job doing it, it will pay well and you are likely to enjoy your job more than other languages.
In this writers opinion, it looks like Go is not stopping anytime soon, it’ll be interesting to revisit this subject when I graduate from HS (2020).
While Go is amazing, it’s important to keep a diverse skill set no matter what happens to Go.