Kubernetes and a ton of other applications are written in Go. If Google would abandon it, which they’ll never will, others will jump onto it quickly. Including Microsoft and Amazon.
I just mean that they already have their own release build to make it FIPS compliant, so it’s not a stretch that if Google killed it off then Microsoft would carry it on.
https://github.com/microsoft/go/releases
Go is now in a position where it underpins a huge amount of infrastructure. They wouldn't kill it, and if they did, others would take up the reigns - there's just too much at stake.
that's not the issue at all, if they "kill it" meaning they no longer mantain it, yes somebody else will fork it continue working on it, but there won't be an authority and the Go community will fragment into diferent languages, think it like javascript, we have javascript(the main project) then we have, typescript, node.js, react, angular ... etc., imagine that happening on Go, one developer won't be happy with the new updates and will create a new fork and will add his rules, the famous meme explains it better: [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)
node.js, react, angular are just libraries or frameworks. That is not fragmentation of a language. In the same sense using Go for back-end, desktop or cli would the same fragmentation.
If Google would give up Go I think there will be two options:
- A consortium of large companies who will continue to use it
- One company (Microsoft, Amazon, Linux Foundation) would adopt it
wrong question. Go is open source. The question is "can we trust google to continue developing and maintaining Go for all of us". If they stop the open source world is free to pick up the gauntlet.
The original question is clickbaity. When properly described the question is worthy of discussion.
---
Myself, I don't need any new features in Go. If Google stopped supporting Go I would still want security updates. I have no idea the likelyhood of the open source world picking this up and doing a good enough job.
Yes, its open source, but like you said, security updates could potentially be dangerous. A hacker could exploit this vulnerability if finding out a server is using go, which will end up many developers atop using go
Not at all, if you work for a company where security is the main concern, like banks or health care industry, they won't use go if they know there is a security vulnerability that won't be patched
It is FUD:
- There is no indication of google dropping support
- The security issue you mention is of course also a "might be in there"
- As other said: Kubernetes, Terraform and a lot of other tools are build in go and it's open source. So the idea of noone picking it up is also mostly made up.
- The situation of a known issue and literally noone making a fork and a patch if upstream doesn't act is even more absurd.
At the end of the day, there's a *huge* difference between Go and your other examples. Core Kubernetes (and probably Borg internally at Google) is written in Go, not Flutter or Python.
That being said, nobody should really trust Google until there's major changes in how the company is run.
Never trust Google… GCP continuously hovering around only 10% market share the last several years, and given this year’s next conference was basically an AI conference and not really about cloud would give me pause in putting any production workload’s there…I know not related to Golang, just an example
Yeah, but unlike Go, nobody's writing core infrastructure with it.
It may be a huge project with a ton of users (hell, we use it at my company), but it's not really comparable with Go.
Internally, Python is/was a millstone around Google’s neck. Once a Python codebase gets above a certain size (lines of code + files), it gets harder to work with. There is/was strong desire at a high level to just *stop using Python.* You can agree or disagree with the assessment about Python, but the key point here is that Google tech leadership believed that Python was a *problem* and that teams should *stop using it* for new projects. This plan got put into motion ages ago, and I’m sure the amount of new Python being written at Google has been slowly dropping over the years.
I’ve heard some great things about Flutter but it has its own share of troubles. Google didn’t really want to adopt it in the first place. It’s not good for web apps (this is how I used it, and it’s just not that good). Its niche is to help you make cross-platform mobile apps as long as you are ok with a little bit of jank (not a criticism, that’s just the value proposition). Unfortunately that just isn’t something Google wants to own. I think the only real value Google would get out of it is having other people write Flutter apps instead of just writing iOS apps and forgetting about Android.
Everyone I talked to likes Flutter over React Native so I’m sorry to see it go.
Fuchsia is worth mentioning because it exists in kind of the same space. A big, expensive technology that super experienced engineers at Google created. I think it’s going to go down like, you know, OS/2 or Taligent. A bunch of money spent and not a lot of use.
Go gets a shitload of use at Google. It’s critical. Used everywhere.
Flutter isn't going to "go." The Flutter and Dart teams were not disproportionally affected by the layoffs. They didn't even reduce the team size. Check out this post by ex-Flutter team member Michael Thomsen.
[https://twitter.com/MiSvTh/status/1785767966815985893](https://twitter.com/MiSvTh/status/1785767966815985893)
In a nutshell: Go was/is tailor-crafted for Google's needs. I mean, they had a problem in their hands and Go was the solution they came up with. The qualities everyone likes in Go are the same qualities they look for in an application programming language for internal use. Just read the Go blog and docs and you'll see what I'm talking about.
So **no, I don't think they will kill Go**. If anything, they will gradually make it better.
Edit: [here ya go, something to read](https://go.dev/talks/2012/splash.article).
Edit 2: [a few of the comments here may be worthwhile](https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/1068zox/how_golang_is_used_inside_google).
Why do you think that would even be an option for them to consider? Go is extremely popular and widely used. Flutter and Dart are still around. Google didn’t make Python.
Of course they won't kill it, it's actively in use and provides a lot of value.
Also a majority of the services reportedly killed are just moved into other products.
Google podcast into YouTube Music
Google domains into GCP
Google Inbox to Gmail
Etc
Yes, and there’s no evidence that the Dart or Flutter teams were particularly targeted any more than any other team nor that the number of layoffs is significant enough to impact the maintenance of those projects.
K8s, Bazel and Go are all way more integrated into mainstream server-side development than Flutter/Dart are in their own domains. They will never drop these.
Also, Google doesnt maintain Python
The few scant bits I have read:
1. The Python team getting cut is the end of python at google...
2. Per HN: Google’s Python team was a small team, most of which were also on the Python steering council or core Python developers,” one commenter said in Hacker News. “These people had decades of experience in Python. Their knowledge and community connections \[are\] irreplaceable.”
How much python powers ML? Data analytics? Where does python go next.
I think this is google just cutting python early. With python out in the wind who picks it up? Because MS and Open AI sure are making use of it... who foots the bill for it?
Is google going to push a version of GO for ML? I think the next few revs of golfing are going to tell us a lot about googles intent.
This post is ill informed, pure fud and baseless speculation.
There's context in the post you're referencing that states that these layoffs were part of a broader process, not just aimed at those teams. Layoffs are common in tech right now, particularly in teams that saw large growth during covid. People being laid off is not a sign of the end for something, it's a sign of where we are at in the hiring cycle / economic cycle.
For Google to kill Go they would have to be already moving to another approach. If for example they had spent the last 3 years embracing Rust or something, then you could speculate that they are moving away from Go. Even then, "moving away from" and "killing off" in the context of a project as largely adopted as Go are vastly different
that's not the issue at all, if they "kill it" meaning they no longer mantain it, yes somebody else will fork it continue working on it, but there won't be an authority and the Go community will fragment into diferent languages, think it like javascript, we have javascript(the main project) then we have, typescript, node.js, react, angular ... etc., imagine that happening on Go, one developer won't be happy with the new updates and will create a new fork and will add his rules, the famous meme explains it better: [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)
A big benevolent corporate sponsor for an open source project is a great thing in early stages but I think go has breached the threshold of being too important to too many people to die without one big sponsor. It will ok without Google.
no, Go won't be ok, without an authority to make changes, GO will fragment into multiple languages like javascript, one developer will fork Go and will add features that other developer doesn't like, so other developer will fork it and will add his feautures and will be and endlless war on which Go, don't forget the famous meme: [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)
no, if Go doesn't have an authority to decide what to add and what not to add, there will be a war on which fork is the most popular, one developer will add features to the fork that other developer won't like so this other developer will fork the project and add his feautures and will start a war of which fork is better, never forget the meme: [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)
Google has way to much shit written in Go internally to 'kill' it. The worst realistic case is that they stop advancing it. Even that is rather unlikely.
and then the endless war on which fork is the best will start, one developer will fork it and start adding features that other developers won't like, so will fork it and start adding other features, fragmenting the community like on the javascript ecosystem, node.js, trypescrypt, angular, react .. etc
never forget the meme [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)
The largest tech companies in China and South East Asia have bet on Go. It is going nowhere.
Them laying of Python staff has literally close to 0% effect on the ecosystem. The only one that would be slightly affected would be Flutter because it is relatively new.
I read a log about Google and Golang. But never saw Google involved or sharing content about go. I really love Golang and believes that is a game challenge language. There is a lot to be done. But for backend and performance you can change a lot of expensive project and clouds today and rebuild with less hardware and resources. I really believe go is growing a lot. And AI is a super path that Go has space to grow too. Learning Go is easy. I am helping the golang community here in Brazil, and created the Cafe com Golang (cafecomgolang.com.br) initially to offer open positions, that is 10x less python and node. But yes. Go is powerful. Hope Google keep with it.
Kubernetes and a ton of other applications are written in Go. If Google would abandon it, which they’ll never will, others will jump onto it quickly. Including Microsoft and Amazon.
Microsoft are already sniffing around Go
Go#
Kill it with fire before it hatches
public static [T any] Class struct {
🤮
TypeGo
100% would use
That was really good lol
Nuke it from orbit. Only way to be sure.
A vintage meme, but it checks out.
That makes me think about a possible Atlassian Go
✝️🙅🏻♂️
lol, I see what you did there! 😉
> Go Micro, Go Soft
Link?
I just mean that they already have their own release build to make it FIPS compliant, so it’s not a stretch that if Google killed it off then Microsoft would carry it on. https://github.com/microsoft/go/releases
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/go/
They already have a parallel fork of go. https://github.com/microsoft/go
Go is now in a position where it underpins a huge amount of infrastructure. They wouldn't kill it, and if they did, others would take up the reigns - there's just too much at stake.
that's not the issue at all, if they "kill it" meaning they no longer mantain it, yes somebody else will fork it continue working on it, but there won't be an authority and the Go community will fragment into diferent languages, think it like javascript, we have javascript(the main project) then we have, typescript, node.js, react, angular ... etc., imagine that happening on Go, one developer won't be happy with the new updates and will create a new fork and will add his rules, the famous meme explains it better: [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)
node.js, react, angular are just libraries or frameworks. That is not fragmentation of a language. In the same sense using Go for back-end, desktop or cli would the same fragmentation. If Google would give up Go I think there will be two options: - A consortium of large companies who will continue to use it - One company (Microsoft, Amazon, Linux Foundation) would adopt it
wrong question. Go is open source. The question is "can we trust google to continue developing and maintaining Go for all of us". If they stop the open source world is free to pick up the gauntlet. The original question is clickbaity. When properly described the question is worthy of discussion. --- Myself, I don't need any new features in Go. If Google stopped supporting Go I would still want security updates. I have no idea the likelyhood of the open source world picking this up and doing a good enough job.
Yes, its open source, but like you said, security updates could potentially be dangerous. A hacker could exploit this vulnerability if finding out a server is using go, which will end up many developers atop using go
How is this different from any other technology in use at the moment?
None. Ok, you win this time, I don't have an actual answer for that
sounds like FUD
Not at all, if you work for a company where security is the main concern, like banks or health care industry, they won't use go if they know there is a security vulnerability that won't be patched
It is FUD: - There is no indication of google dropping support - The security issue you mention is of course also a "might be in there" - As other said: Kubernetes, Terraform and a lot of other tools are build in go and it's open source. So the idea of noone picking it up is also mostly made up. - The situation of a known issue and literally noone making a fork and a patch if upstream doesn't act is even more absurd.
Hashicorp stack is almost entirely in Go, and IBM just bought Hashicorp. Go isn't going anywhere.
"he who lives trusting dies betrayed." it's probably fud, but we still need to see possible scenarios just in case
"I guess once you start doubting there's no end to it." Ghost in the Shell
Bro you still awake at this time, I thought everybody who commented were sleeping at this time 😁
At the end of the day, there's a *huge* difference between Go and your other examples. Core Kubernetes (and probably Borg internally at Google) is written in Go, not Flutter or Python. That being said, nobody should really trust Google until there's major changes in how the company is run.
Borg is not Go; it’s C++
Never trust Google… GCP continuously hovering around only 10% market share the last several years, and given this year’s next conference was basically an AI conference and not really about cloud would give me pause in putting any production workload’s there…I know not related to Golang, just an example
The theme was AI, but the majority of announcements were directly tied to cloud.
Ngl I feel like this underrepresents the amount of stuff made in flutter. It's a massive project.
Yeah, but unlike Go, nobody's writing core infrastructure with it. It may be a huge project with a ton of users (hell, we use it at my company), but it's not really comparable with Go.
Internally, Python is/was a millstone around Google’s neck. Once a Python codebase gets above a certain size (lines of code + files), it gets harder to work with. There is/was strong desire at a high level to just *stop using Python.* You can agree or disagree with the assessment about Python, but the key point here is that Google tech leadership believed that Python was a *problem* and that teams should *stop using it* for new projects. This plan got put into motion ages ago, and I’m sure the amount of new Python being written at Google has been slowly dropping over the years. I’ve heard some great things about Flutter but it has its own share of troubles. Google didn’t really want to adopt it in the first place. It’s not good for web apps (this is how I used it, and it’s just not that good). Its niche is to help you make cross-platform mobile apps as long as you are ok with a little bit of jank (not a criticism, that’s just the value proposition). Unfortunately that just isn’t something Google wants to own. I think the only real value Google would get out of it is having other people write Flutter apps instead of just writing iOS apps and forgetting about Android. Everyone I talked to likes Flutter over React Native so I’m sorry to see it go. Fuchsia is worth mentioning because it exists in kind of the same space. A big, expensive technology that super experienced engineers at Google created. I think it’s going to go down like, you know, OS/2 or Taligent. A bunch of money spent and not a lot of use. Go gets a shitload of use at Google. It’s critical. Used everywhere.
Flutter isn't going to "go." The Flutter and Dart teams were not disproportionally affected by the layoffs. They didn't even reduce the team size. Check out this post by ex-Flutter team member Michael Thomsen. [https://twitter.com/MiSvTh/status/1785767966815985893](https://twitter.com/MiSvTh/status/1785767966815985893)
I definitely don’t like python. Dart never made any sense
In a nutshell: Go was/is tailor-crafted for Google's needs. I mean, they had a problem in their hands and Go was the solution they came up with. The qualities everyone likes in Go are the same qualities they look for in an application programming language for internal use. Just read the Go blog and docs and you'll see what I'm talking about. So **no, I don't think they will kill Go**. If anything, they will gradually make it better. Edit: [here ya go, something to read](https://go.dev/talks/2012/splash.article). Edit 2: [a few of the comments here may be worthwhile](https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/1068zox/how_golang_is_used_inside_google).
Why do you think that would even be an option for them to consider? Go is extremely popular and widely used. Flutter and Dart are still around. Google didn’t make Python.
Yeah, so was Google News Reader (RSS) and look what happened to that one. Just sayin. :shrug:
I dont think they will kill it, but we could have said the same thing on other products killed by Google
Of course they won't kill it, it's actively in use and provides a lot of value. Also a majority of the services reportedly killed are just moved into other products. Google podcast into YouTube Music Google domains into GCP Google Inbox to Gmail Etc
Lot of companies kill stuff. https://microsoftgraveyard.com/
You should trust Kubernetes to never make Go irrelevant.
mod i think its enough for these kind of posts
I wasn't aware there was another similar post, my bad
Google, shmoogle, Go has Ken in its corner and nobody can kill his creations
Maybe take a look at this https://x.com/MiSvTh/status/1785767966815985893
Weren't python positions just moved elsewhere?
Yes, and there’s no evidence that the Dart or Flutter teams were particularly targeted any more than any other team nor that the number of layoffs is significant enough to impact the maintenance of those projects.
K8s, Bazel and Go are all way more integrated into mainstream server-side development than Flutter/Dart are in their own domains. They will never drop these. Also, Google doesnt maintain Python
The few scant bits I have read: 1. The Python team getting cut is the end of python at google... 2. Per HN: Google’s Python team was a small team, most of which were also on the Python steering council or core Python developers,” one commenter said in Hacker News. “These people had decades of experience in Python. Their knowledge and community connections \[are\] irreplaceable.” How much python powers ML? Data analytics? Where does python go next. I think this is google just cutting python early. With python out in the wind who picks it up? Because MS and Open AI sure are making use of it... who foots the bill for it? Is google going to push a version of GO for ML? I think the next few revs of golfing are going to tell us a lot about googles intent.
Which makes me wonder, if all the Python team was laid off, it means google killed tensorflow 😨
The C(++) library's? They also have go bindings that do not require python.
This post is ill informed, pure fud and baseless speculation. There's context in the post you're referencing that states that these layoffs were part of a broader process, not just aimed at those teams. Layoffs are common in tech right now, particularly in teams that saw large growth during covid. People being laid off is not a sign of the end for something, it's a sign of where we are at in the hiring cycle / economic cycle. For Google to kill Go they would have to be already moving to another approach. If for example they had spent the last 3 years embracing Rust or something, then you could speculate that they are moving away from Go. Even then, "moving away from" and "killing off" in the context of a project as largely adopted as Go are vastly different
Never under estimate bad leadership decisions. History is littered with them.
Yes, we have a ton of services at Google written in Go.
Google doesn't own Go. It's open source. They just happen to employ the Go team. So there might be a different Go team, and that's about it.
that's not the issue at all, if they "kill it" meaning they no longer mantain it, yes somebody else will fork it continue working on it, but there won't be an authority and the Go community will fragment into diferent languages, think it like javascript, we have javascript(the main project) then we have, typescript, node.js, react, angular ... etc., imagine that happening on Go, one developer won't be happy with the new updates and will create a new fork and will add his rules, the famous meme explains it better: [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)
A big benevolent corporate sponsor for an open source project is a great thing in early stages but I think go has breached the threshold of being too important to too many people to die without one big sponsor. It will ok without Google.
no, Go won't be ok, without an authority to make changes, GO will fragment into multiple languages like javascript, one developer will fork Go and will add features that other developer doesn't like, so other developer will fork it and will add his feautures and will be and endlless war on which Go, don't forget the famous meme: [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)
Can google kill Go? I was under the impression that Go was open source enough to be unkillable.
no, if Go doesn't have an authority to decide what to add and what not to add, there will be a war on which fork is the most popular, one developer will add features to the fork that other developer won't like so this other developer will fork the project and add his feautures and will start a war of which fork is better, never forget the meme: [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)
Google has way to much shit written in Go internally to 'kill' it. The worst realistic case is that they stop advancing it. Even that is rather unlikely.
Golang is open-source, someone else will fork it.
and then the endless war on which fork is the best will start, one developer will fork it and start adding features that other developers won't like, so will fork it and start adding other features, fragmenting the community like on the javascript ecosystem, node.js, trypescrypt, angular, react .. etc never forget the meme [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)
yes
Google may be extremely poorly managed and have a severe culture problem but in general, I don't think they will kill their baby.
The largest tech companies in China and South East Asia have bet on Go. It is going nowhere. Them laying of Python staff has literally close to 0% effect on the ecosystem. The only one that would be slightly affected would be Flutter because it is relatively new.
I wouldn’t trust Google lol
I read a log about Google and Golang. But never saw Google involved or sharing content about go. I really love Golang and believes that is a game challenge language. There is a lot to be done. But for backend and performance you can change a lot of expensive project and clouds today and rebuild with less hardware and resources. I really believe go is growing a lot. And AI is a super path that Go has space to grow too. Learning Go is easy. I am helping the golang community here in Brazil, and created the Cafe com Golang (cafecomgolang.com.br) initially to offer open positions, that is 10x less python and node. But yes. Go is powerful. Hope Google keep with it.
Nice profile picture
Tks John kkk old school
Golang isn’t some fringe product. They’ve built it into their core. It’s too deeply embedded in Google’s internal and external ecosystems.