While it still has a long way to go to catch up with favorites like Java and C, there are several signs that Google’s Go language is becoming more popular with developers. First, it’s been used in several high-profile projects like Docker, Heroku’s Force.com and Cloud Foundry’s (Go)Router.
Second, based on Ohloh data, Go usage has risen dramatically in open source projects over the last two years. Redmonk analyst Donnie Berkholz notes, “Go is rapidly closing in on 1% of total commits and half a percent of projects and contributors…. To provide some context, however, each of the most popular languages on Ohloh (C, C++, Java, JavaScript) only constitutes ~10% of commits and ~5% of projects and contributors. That means Go, a seemingly very minor player, is already used nearly one tenth as much in FOSS [free and open-source software] as the most popular languages in existence.”
Go has several features that make it popular, most notably, the ease with which it handles cloud development and concurrency.