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I have read quite a bit about the Go language, and it seems promising. The last important bit of information I am missing before I decide on spending more effort on the language is: How much money/man power does Google or other companies invest in the development effort? If this information cannot be provided, do you have any other information showing the commitment of Google to the project. Is it being used as the primary language for a new investment or similar (my guess is that it is too early for this, but I do not know)?

user
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David
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    Recently Google invested another bit in Go and now [Go runs on AppEngine](http://blog.golang.org/2011/05/go-and-google-app-engine.html). Another sign that Go is alive and kicking. – 9000 May 11 '11 at 10:02
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    @9000 Please provide that comment as an answer, so we can upvote anand comment on it. – David May 22 '11 at 00:09
  • I’m voting to close this question because this question is about investment strategy and product management, of really about software engineering – Christophe Aug 13 '23 at 16:31

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I have been using go for about a year now, and the language has continually improved since then. Things are changing, improving, (somewhat) stabilizing, and generally amazing me in their innovations (e.g. gofix). It is most certainly not dying, and they seem to be putting quite a bit of effort into it.

The Google code page shows 17 people contributing to the project. From the looks of it, all but three of them are likely Google employees: http://code.google.com/p/go/people/list. Worth noting is that the go project has notable programmers such as Rob Pike and Ken Thompson working for it, fathers of UNIX. If Google didn't care about the future of the go language, it is unlikely they would assign such high-profile programmers to its development.

Google is using go internally: http://golang.org/doc/go_faq.html#Is_Google_using_go_internally

The oracle saga won't happen with go: See the licence file and the irrevocable patent grant. Even if Google were to stop developing go (which is unlikely, given my points above), someone else would likely pick it up.

In addition to all of the above points, Google go is pretty much ideal for Google's internal use, due to it's built-in parallelization, native library support for the http protocol, and speed. For this reason alone, you can be pretty confident that go will be supported by Google for a while to come.

crazy2be
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    Brad Fitzpatrick of memcached and other projects fame is also part of the Go team, he has been fixing bugs and implementing features all over the standard library like crazy. – uriel Jun 12 '11 at 12:40
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    also that lock free guy from 1024cores blog is working on Go. So although im not a fan IMHO Go isnt Going under. – NoSenseEtAl Jun 15 '12 at 19:02
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Recently Google invested another bit in Go and now Go runs on AppEngine. Another sign that Go is alive and kicking.

Upgraded from a comment by popular demand :)

9000
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    Go on AppEngine looks awesome. Too much easier than Java and clear&fast than python. – Zippo Jul 06 '11 at 04:57
  • And it's just [got ready](http://blog.golang.org/2011/07/go-for-app-engine-is-now-generally.html) now. – Zippo Jul 22 '11 at 14:45
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I don't know the number of developers, but there's an intensive continuous development of Go. The team releases their improvements often (almost every weekly), maintains the documentation and the dashboard (http://godashboard.appspot.com/) and participates at the Google I/O and other conferences.

The community grows as well as the number of projects. So after a first hype and the trough of disillusionment Go now slowly gets up to a productive language.

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  • I am just worried about Google suddenly cutting on exactly the services I have began to love and depend on. One of them being Google Answers. – David May 01 '11 at 18:22
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    Who needs Google Answers when you got Stack Exchange? – Job May 01 '11 at 18:31
  • Google is cutting services that didn't caught on. Just like any other successful company. I guess it is called learning from mistakes. – Paweł Dyda May 01 '11 at 19:23
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    You never can be sure. But for me Go has the potential to let Google be more independent from Java (which is now owned by Oracle), e.g. on Android phones. Additionally Go is a good combination of many C, C++ and Python features, all intensively used at Google. – themue May 01 '11 at 19:25
  • @Job With Google Answers I could ask people to do a lot more work than on Stack Exchange. Here there is always the risk that nobody will be motivated to do the work needed to answer a question. – David May 01 '11 at 22:08
  • Google has always said they develop almost anything, throw them at the wall and keep the ones that stick. Google answers obviously slowly slid down to the gutter. – gbjbaanb May 11 '11 at 15:52
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How much is Google investing in Go language? I don't think any one could answer except Google itself.
Google has the habit of releasing projects and see how people react to them, if there is a lot of buzz around it, invest into it and if not, drop it.
Examples:
Chrome OS, Google Buzz, GMail, Reader, Android ...

Chiron
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    It is worth noting that even if Google stops investing in Go, the language isn't necessarily going to die. It is open source and free, and other companies are using it seriously. There are three compilers that I'm aware of. So unlike, say, Answers or Wave, if Google decides to stop supporting it, it won't be devastated. – Kyle C May 03 '11 at 17:22
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    Also quite a few companies have started to build their infrastructure using Go, see: http://go-lang.cat-v.org/organizations-using-go – uriel Jun 12 '11 at 12:41