If you’re looking for a robust general-purpose language, look no further. Golang and Clojure are both industry heavyweights. Their flexibility and strength make them unique multi-purpose languages that can be used to build applications from the ground up with a very little problem. To get you ready to use these fast-growing languages, we’ve compiled a quick explanation of what these powerhouse languages have to offer you.

What is Golang (Go)?

Google introduced Go in 2009 as a language for servers, but as it grew and developed alongside the community, it’s become much more general purpose. In fact, Go reads more like a dynamic language due to its patterns in syntax and environment.

Go acts as a faster version of C; faster, easier, and more fun. The internet is filled with stories of how Go is a more efficient language that can cut server costs and improve response times. Web-app developers love this language because of its might as a general-purpose language and ease with handling web apps’ back-end services.

Pros and Cons of Go

Pros

• Improved Package Manager
• Open Source Language
• Extremely Powerful
• Excellent Concurrency Primitives
• Simplified C Based Syntax
• Easy To Build Performant Systems
• Simpler Learning Curve Than Clojure
• Close-knit and Supportive Community

Cons

• Sub-Par Package Manager for go get
• Sub-Par Testing Framework
• Not For Full-stack Development- Not on the same level as Clojure

What is Clojure?

Clojure was first launched in 2007 and from the beginning has been focused on concurrency. It uses the Java Virtual Machine as infrastructure, giving it a familiar feel and access to all of Java’s libraries. This gives Clojure one of the most extensive ecosystems of the languages available.

The flexibility of Clojure means it works perfectly as a general-purpose language. Because it is a hosted language, it can be run on either the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) or JavaScript engines. Now that ClojureScript has been added, Clojure can build web applications from scratch with no other languages needed.

Clojure is widespread, being used by almost every industry due to its skills in creating threads. These threads are lightweight and equal to two plus the number of cores in your machine. Because a thread doesn’t have to be created for each new process, you get better performance and lower overhead.

Pros and Cons of Clojure

Pros

• Open Source Language
• Extremely Powerful
• Excellent Concurrency Primitives
• Can Use Java’s Gradle
• User Friendly- Surpasses other Lisps and JVM
• Easy to Learn
• Large Package Ecosystem
• Great General-Purpose Language
• Highly Performant

Cons

• Vague and Unhelpful Errors
• Less Learning Resources
• Excessive Compilation

Concurrency

In the past, OS threads that were heavy and cumbersome had to be used. Now, with languages like Go and Clojure, we can spawn lightweight threads to async thread. This means the capability to work faster and easier.

Clojure and Concurrency

Everything within a go block (so named because Golang actually inspired the creator of Clojure) runs concurrently on a separate thread. This means faster performance as your system doesn’t have to create a new thread for each item.

Go and Concurrency

The goroutine is a lightweight process that contains a function prefixed with the go keyword. The goroutines are scheduled onto a smaller set of operating system threads.

Which Is Better- Go or Clojure?

When considering what language to use for your next project, closely look at the pros and cons. Clojure and Go are extremely powerful open-source languages but may be challenging to learn or more challenging to test on.

All in all, Go and Clojure pack a considerable punch in concurrency, allowing you to spin potentially thousands of lightweight async threads without your processor overloading.