Paul Krill
Editor at Large

Go language shines for AI-powered workloads, survey says

news
Apr 10, 20242 mins

Go Developer Survey respondents who build AI-powered applications and services already use Go or want to migrate to Go for those workloads.

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The Go programming language is viewed by developers who build AI-powered applications and services as a strong platform for running those workloads. Nevertheless, Python is viewed by Go developers as the language to use when starting AI-powered work, according to a recent survey of Go developers.

In the semi-annual Go Developer Survey for 2024, conducted in January and February  by the Go team at Google, survey respondents who build AI-powered applications and services shared a sense that Go was a strong platform for running these types of workloads in production. A majority of respondents working with AI-powered applications already use Go or would like to migrate to Go for AI workloads.

The most commonly documented paths for beginning with AI, however, were Python-centric, the survey indicated. This has resulted in many organizations starting AI-powered work in Python before moving to a more “production-ready” language. The most common kinds of AI-powered services respondents reported building were summarization tools, text generation tools, and chatbots.

The results of the Go Developer Survey 2024 H1 were published April 9. The survey received a total of 6,224 responses. In other findings:

  • When respondents were asked which generative AI models their organization was using, 81% said OpenAI ChatGPT or DALL-E, followed by Meta Llama at 28%, Mistral AI / Mixtral at 18%, and Google Gemini, Imagen, or PaLM at 13%.
  • When respondents were asked which libraries or services they used to integrate with generative AI models, 69% said OpenAI, followed by Hugging Face TGI or Candle at 22% and LangChain at 20%.
  • Lack of time or opportunities were the most commonly cited challenges to reaching Go-related learning goals.
  • Go developer sentiment remains high, with 93% of respondents satisfied with Go during the past year.
  • 80% of respondents said they trust the Go team to “do what’s best” for developers while maintaining and evolving the language.
  • Almost a third of respondents said they had participated in the Go developer community either online or in person during the last year.
  • Most respondents write Go code on Linux, at 61%, followed by macOS at 58%, Windows at 23%, and Windows Subsystem for Linux at 17%.
  • The preferred editor for writing Go code was Visual Studio Code, at 43%, followed by GoLand/IntelliJ at 33% and Vim / Neovim at 17%.
  • The most relevant security or compliance concern cited when working on Go services was insecure coding practices, with 42% citing this issue.
Paul Krill

Paul Krill is editor at large at InfoWorld. Paul has been covering computer technology as a news and feature reporter for more than 35 years, including 30 years at InfoWorld. He has specialized in coverage of software development tools and technologies since the 1990s, and he continues to lead InfoWorld’s news coverage of software development platforms including Java and .NET and programming languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, and Go. Long trusted as a reporter who prioritizes accuracy, integrity, and the best interests of readers, Paul is sought out by technology companies and industry organizations who want to reach InfoWorld’s audience of software developers and other information technology professionals. Paul has won a “Best Technology News Coverage” award from IDG.

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