Golang and Python are both advanced-level programming languages. Python was developed in 1991 by the Dutch programmer Guido can Rossum. It is seen as a language without much complexity and one which uses easy-to-read code.Python is mainly in data science,backend web development and Machine learning but it can also be used in any area of software development.It has a simpler syntax compared to other major languages like Java and C.
Golang is comparatively a young programming language vis-a-vis other languages.It was developed by Google between 2007 and 2009 and is also known as Go.The main programmers who developed Golang at Google were,Robert Griesemer,Rob Pike and Ken Thompson. It has a lot of resemblance with C language apparently but it has a number of features in addition to C. It is mainly used for cloud services and golang web development.
We will compare Golang and Python on the basis of seven parameters:
1 Status:
Go is a compiled language, which is statically typed and does not have type inheritance,method overloading or generic programming and uses a compiler.It is good for performance sensitive programme.The variable types are declared explicitly for the compiler in a statically typed language.Golang has mild support for object orientation and the opening and closing braces are the basis of syntax here.
Python is a dynamically typed programming language which is typed as well as interpreted dynamically.Python is also known as an interpreted language in which we don’t initialise variables since the typechecking is done at runtime.The inferences are implemented by the interpreter with the possibility of bugs remaining due to some error by the interpreter in a
dynamically typed language.Python provides first class Object Oriented programming and it utilizes indentation in order to show code blocks.
Therefore,Golang can be used for building big programmes which may not be done with ease with the help of Python .
2. Performance:
Python shows good high productivity in all phases of the software, like, coding, prototyping,debugging and documentation and so on whereas Go is good at stand-alone
command-line apps and web servers.Hence, both are good performers but Go is preferred for large,distributed systems and highly scalable network serves since it’s concurrency helps calculations faster then Python.
3. Readability:
It refers to the comprehensiblity or how easy to read a programming language is.The easier a programme is to read,the easier it is to debug the programme .Python is definitely simpler and more readable language for the human mind.Golang is also an easy-to-use language but is not as simple as Python.Therefore,Python is more readable than Golang.
4.Concurrency:
It is the ability to execute multiple processes at the same time,which saves time.Golang supports concurrency and is popular for this feature in the developer community.It is said that Golang was built with the intention of providing concurrency.Goroutine and channels are enablers of
concurrency here, which is a function possessing capacity to run concurrently with other functions and the connectors for Goroutines which help communication and synchronisation respectively.
On the other hand, Python does not support concurrency inherently but has provisions for concurrency via threading,which is a set of operations getting executed independent of others,and asyncio,which is a library to provide concurrent code with the help of async/await syntax through threads.Hence,it leads to parallelism with the help of threads where parallelism is the splitting up of the tasks of an application into smaller subtasks which can be processed in parallel.
5.Speed:
Golang is popular and stands out from other languages due to its speed of compilation.It is because Python is quicker to write the code but the performance of the code is slow,whereas ,Go needs to work on the code a little more time but it’s performance is rapid.When it comes to complex computations ,on an average Golang is 20 percentage to 50 percentage faster than Python.
6.Libraries:
Libraries are like treasure to software developers,and therefore a language with a good library is always desirable.Python has library like Numpy,which help in array handling and complex matric functions, OpenCV,which assists in image processing and Pandas for data analysis and so on.
On the other hand,Golang has its own inherent libraries,which are not as big as Python but all the fields used in Python are covered here.Hence,we see both have very useful libraries but Python’s libraries are more extensive and they are one of the major reasons for Python’s popularity.
7. Applications:
Python is mostly used in data analytics,web development, machine learning and artificial intelligence whereas Golang is mainly used for systems programming because of its advantage of concurrency but is considerably used for cloud computing and web development.
8 . Prototyping:
A programmer can easily build a prototype only with the basic knowledge of Python,which makes it an excellent choice for prototyping on account of its dynamic nature.On the other hand,Golang QQ is static in nature which makes it less easier for making prototypes as Golang is stricter when it comes to compilation and even a simple prototype can’t be built in Golang with just basic knowledge of the language.
Therefore,we have seen the advantages and disadvantages of both the languages on the basis of the aforementioned parameters.If the sole aim is to use a language for its scalability and speed,then Golang would be the right choice whereas if we go for more readability and libraries then Python would be the right programming language.
