The Go programming language is coming to Google App Engine
By David Symonds, Nigel Tao, and Andrew Gerrand of the Go Team
The growing ranks of
Go
programmers will soon have another platform: Go will be the third language, after Python and
Java, in which to write
Google App
Engine apps. This is an exciting new experimental feature of App Engine and a major
milestone for Go.
Go is an open source language, initially designed at
Google, that was released in November 2009 and has seen significant development since launch.
It is a statically typed, compiled language with a dynamic and lightweight feel. It’s also an
interesting new option for App Engine because Go apps will be compiled to native code, making
Go a good choice for more CPU-intensive tasks. Plus the garbage collection and concurrency
features of the language, combined with excellent libraries, make it a great fit for web
apps.
As of today, the App Engine SDK for Go is
available
for download, and we will soon enable deployment of Go apps into the App Engine
infrastructure. If you’re interested in starting early,
sign
up to be first through the door when we open it up to early testers. Once it proves
solid, we’ll open it up to everyone, although it will remain an experimental App Engine
feature for a while.
You don’t need an existing Go installation; the
SDK is fully self-contained, so it’s very simple to get a local web app up and running. The
SDK is a really easy way to start playing with Go.
More details can be
found at the
Go
Programming Language blog.
Posted by Scott Knaster,
Editor
