Google plans to restructure programming with Go

Bangalore: Google software luminaries such as Unix Co-creator Ken Thompson believe that they can help boost both computing power and programmers' abilities with an experimental programming language project called Go.

The language has been tested internally at Google, but is still at an experimental stage, so the search giant is releasing it as open-source code in the hope that it will get help with its future development. "We developed Go because we had become a bit frustrated with how difficult software development has become in the last 10 years or so," said Rob Pike, Principal Software Engineer at Google.



So far, Google's Go project consists of the programming language, compilers to convert what programmers write into software that computers can run and a runtime package that endows Go programs with a number of built-in features. It's most similar to C and C++, but, Pike said, it employs modern features and has enough versatility that it could even be used within web browsers, reports CNET News.

Go aims to improve on the way existing programming languages manage dependencies, which are the software components that applications re-use, such as libraries, Pike said. The language is also designed to handle multiprocessor work particularly well, thanks to its concurrent programming model.

Google started working on Go about two years ago and devoted a team to work on it full time about a year ago. It was conceived as a language for systems programming, such as web servers, storage systems and databases. However, Google is open to seeing it branch out into other areas.

At this point, Go is not used in any user-facing Google service or application, since it still has to mature, which is where external programmers come into the picture. "We need better libraries and tools, and the open-source community is great at helping you with things like that," Pike said.

By creating a new programming language, Google continues making inroads into the realm of computing building blocks, prompted by a sense of urgency at making them better. This motivation has also led Google to embark on developing the Android mobile operating system, the Chrome PC browser and the still-unreleased Chrome operating system.