6 ms·

Kotlin is becoming more and more popular. Are we better off learning Kotlin instead of Go?

by perseusprime11 9y ago

vanderZwan 9y ago
That's an impossible to answer question because we don't know your situation or use-case.
- perseusprime11 9y ago
  I want to learn the most efficient language for creating high-performance APIs ( Micro-services).
bsaul 9y ago
of course it depends on your case , but my guess is that if you ask the question then you should probably invest time on kotlin ( because it aims for a larger scope of use cases) People coding in go for real world projects usualy know that go fits the tradeoffs they're looking for.
- wayn3 9y ago
  either that or they started a company when the hypetrain was around
msluyter 9y ago
Like someone mentioned, it's hard to answer this in the general case. Factors to consider would be: a) are you dependent on the JVM and Java ecosystem? b) Are you already familiar/comfortable with Java/Scala? "Yes" answers to both of these might lean you towards Kotlin. c) is speed essential? d) are you doing systems programming as opposed to CRUD webapps?[1] These might lead you to Go. [1] I know you can do the latter in Go, but it's unclear that it's as easy/productive as in other langs currently (nor have I directly compared, say, Revel to other frameworks, so someone else is probably better qualified to answer this question.)
- candiodari 9y ago
  If you want speed, use golang ? Java (and kotlin) are faster than Go in almost all cases (except for startup time) (and even there difference is shrinking, plus you get a lot back for that startup time). C, if you must, is faster still, and C++ can be faster as well. As a quick (and inaccurate) rule, any program that runs longer than 10-20 seconds will be faster in Java than in Go.
  - vbezhenar 9y ago
    What about memory? I wouldn't run any kind of production Java web server with 256M RAM server. I've had impression that Golang is much less memory-dependant.
    - sebcat 9y ago
      Not sure about the most recent versions, but Go can run on MIPS platforms with 32MB RAM.
  - skybrian 9y ago
    But if you care more about latency and predictable performance, Go's very low-latency GC is attractive.
    - candiodari 9y ago
      Not really. Golang provides "mostly" low latency, at the cost of everything else, most significantly throughput, and load. https://blog.plan99.net/modern-garbage-collection-911ef4f8bd8e https://blog.plan99.net/modern-garbage-collection-911ef4f8bd... TLDR: Go's GC will only be realtime as long as you use it only minimally. With tiny programs, that's fine of course. With larger programs, it will block for a looooong time. That's masked by the language making it very hard to write larger programs in the first place. For instance, by not having decent data structures (not even a tree, seriously ?) I guarantee if you actually use the GC, there comes a point where java runs circles around Go. Hell, there comes a point where the lua GC runs circles around the Go one. That point is a lot closer than you might think, and as a bad rule of thumb you should probably think of it like this: if any of cpu, mem, i/o goes >80% of the machine's capacity, Go will disappoint very badly compared to Java (GC using more memory, using more cpu, longer pauses, ...). But if all those values are at 2% of capacity, Go's runtime will perform better. Tradeoffs. Everything is tradeoffs. Go is not better than Java/JVM, it's worse. But a different set of tradeoffs means that there are circumstances where it'll beat the other set of tradeoffs. But "close to 0", Go will beat the JVM.
sandGorgon 9y ago
Kotlin and vertx is a brilliant alternative to golang in general. And if course, if you have even remote plans of doing anything on Android...It now makes much more sense than ever
camus2 9y ago
> Kotlin is becoming more and more popular. Are we better off learning Kotlin instead of Go? How does Kotlin handles concurrency? Now I've heard that Kotlin has a "Kotlin native" version. I didn't try it yet, but if that's the case and it has good concurrency support then Yes, in theory it could compete with Go, more than Scala native would, Scala is too complicated for the kind of audience attracted by Go.
- SureshG 9y ago
  On JVM and Native kotlin does support coroutines and supports all kinds of concurrency models (including go style goroutines). Check this more details - https://github.com/Kotlin/kotlinx.coroutines/blob/master/coroutines-guide.md#guide-to-kotlinxcoroutines-by-example https://github.com/Kotlin/kotlinx.coroutines/blob/master/cor...
  - weberc2 9y ago
    I don't think that has to routines. Goroutines are multiplexed across threads automatically by the scheduler, so all I have to care about is describing concurrent operations. Further, all I/o is async under the hood, so you never have to worry if a call will block the thread. Also, Go's concurrency is muuccchhh simpler.
int_19h 9y ago
Kotlin is not a replacement for Go - it's a fair bit higher on the "abstraction" scale, not the least of which is that it requires a VM. That said, I'm not convinced that Go's place on that scale is useful in general. It feels like, if raw performance is desirable, then something like Rust - with stronger static typing (and so no overhead on boxing values as interfaces, for example) and no GC is going to be better. And if higher-level, more powerful abstractions are required, then something like Kotlin is going to be better. Go is in that awkward spot where it makes you give up enough of the latter to be painful, but doesn't really make up for it with more of the former. Of course, this is a subjective opinion. YMMV.

Kotlin is becoming more and more popular. Are we better off learning Kotlin instead of Go?

vanderZwan 9y ago

That's an impossible to answer question because we don't know your situation or use-case.

perseusprime11 9y ago
I want to learn the most efficient language for creating high-performance APIs ( Micro-services).

bsaul 9y ago

of course it depends on your case , but my guess is that if you ask the question then you should probably invest time on kotlin ( because it aims for a larger scope of use cases) People coding in go for real world projects usualy know that go fits the tradeoffs they're looking for.

wayn3 9y ago
either that or they started a company when the hypetrain was around

msluyter 9y ago

Like someone mentioned, it's hard to answer this in the general case. Factors to consider would be: a) are you dependent on the JVM and Java ecosystem? b) Are you already familiar/comfortable with Java/Scala? "Yes" answers to both of these might lean you towards Kotlin. c) is speed essential? d) are you doing systems programming as opposed to CRUD webapps?[1] These might lead you to Go. [1] I know you can do the latter in Go, but it's unclear that it's as easy/productive as in other langs currently (nor have I directly compared, say, Revel to other frameworks, so someone else is probably better qualified to answer this question.)

candiodari 9y ago
If you want speed, use golang ? Java (and kotlin) are faster than Go in almost all cases (except for startup time) (and even there difference is shrinking, plus you get a lot back for that startup time). C, if you must, is faster still, and C++ can be faster as well. As a quick (and inaccurate) rule, any program that runs longer than 10-20 seconds will be faster in Java than in Go.
- vbezhenar 9y ago
  What about memory? I wouldn't run any kind of production Java web server with 256M RAM server. I've had impression that Golang is much less memory-dependant.
  - sebcat 9y ago
    Not sure about the most recent versions, but Go can run on MIPS platforms with 32MB RAM.
- skybrian 9y ago
  But if you care more about latency and predictable performance, Go's very low-latency GC is attractive.
  - candiodari 9y ago
    Not really. Golang provides "mostly" low latency, at the cost of everything else, most significantly throughput, and load. https://blog.plan99.net/modern-garbage-collection-911ef4f8bd8e https://blog.plan99.net/modern-garbage-collection-911ef4f8bd... TLDR: Go's GC will only be realtime as long as you use it only minimally. With tiny programs, that's fine of course. With larger programs, it will block for a looooong time. That's masked by the language making it very hard to write larger programs in the first place. For instance, by not having decent data structures (not even a tree, seriously ?) I guarantee if you actually use the GC, there comes a point where java runs circles around Go. Hell, there comes a point where the lua GC runs circles around the Go one. That point is a lot closer than you might think, and as a bad rule of thumb you should probably think of it like this: if any of cpu, mem, i/o goes >80% of the machine's capacity, Go will disappoint very badly compared to Java (GC using more memory, using more cpu, longer pauses, ...). But if all those values are at 2% of capacity, Go's runtime will perform better. Tradeoffs. Everything is tradeoffs. Go is not better than Java/JVM, it's worse. But a different set of tradeoffs means that there are circumstances where it'll beat the other set of tradeoffs. But "close to 0", Go will beat the JVM.

sandGorgon 9y ago

Kotlin and vertx is a brilliant alternative to golang in general. And if course, if you have even remote plans of doing anything on Android...It now makes much more sense than ever

camus2 9y ago

> Kotlin is becoming more and more popular. Are we better off learning Kotlin instead of Go? How does Kotlin handles concurrency? Now I've heard that Kotlin has a "Kotlin native" version. I didn't try it yet, but if that's the case and it has good concurrency support then Yes, in theory it could compete with Go, more than Scala native would, Scala is too complicated for the kind of audience attracted by Go.

SureshG 9y ago
On JVM and Native kotlin does support coroutines and supports all kinds of concurrency models (including go style goroutines). Check this more details - https://github.com/Kotlin/kotlinx.coroutines/blob/master/coroutines-guide.md#guide-to-kotlinxcoroutines-by-example https://github.com/Kotlin/kotlinx.coroutines/blob/master/cor...
- weberc2 9y ago
  I don't think that has to routines. Goroutines are multiplexed across threads automatically by the scheduler, so all I have to care about is describing concurrent operations. Further, all I/o is async under the hood, so you never have to worry if a call will block the thread. Also, Go's concurrency is muuccchhh simpler.

int_19h 9y ago

Kotlin is not a replacement for Go - it's a fair bit higher on the "abstraction" scale, not the least of which is that it requires a VM. That said, I'm not convinced that Go's place on that scale is useful in general. It feels like, if raw performance is desirable, then something like Rust - with stronger static typing (and so no overhead on boxing values as interfaces, for example) and no GC is going to be better. And if higher-level, more powerful abstractions are required, then something like Kotlin is going to be better. Go is in that awkward spot where it makes you give up enough of the latter to be painful, but doesn't really make up for it with more of the former. Of course, this is a subjective opinion. YMMV.