When comparing Scratch vs Go, the Slant community recommends Go for most people. In the question“What is the best programming language to learn first?” Go is ranked 7th while Scratch is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose Go is:
Goroutines are "lightweight threads" that runs on OS threads. They provide a simple way for concurrent operations — prepending a function with `go` will execute it concurrently. It utilizes channels for communication between goroutines which aids to prevent races and makes synchronizing execution effortless across goroutines. The maximum number of OS threads goroutines can run on may be defined at compile time with the `GOMAXPROCS` variable.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Easy to learn
Scratch is designed to teach computational thinking rather than focus on specific syntax. It was designed specifically to be easy to learn for anyone over the age of 8.
Pro Great starting point for kids
Scratch was developed specifically for kids ages 8 and up as an exciting way to introduce them to technology. It's designed to be easy to learn, but still provides good depth in computational thinking.
Pro Visual
Code is represented as visual building blocks that makes it easy to understand how a program is put together.
Pro No need to be able to type
Pro Can be used to create games
Pro Highly structured
The language is highly structured. Therefore, it gives you the essentials of how to think like a programmer and teaches you good programming practices from early on, so you could write clean, working and readable code in the future.
Pro Exceptionally simple and scalable multithreaded and concurrent programming
Goroutines are "lightweight threads" that runs on OS threads. They provide a simple way for concurrent operations — prepending a function with go will execute it concurrently. It utilizes channels for communication between goroutines which aids to prevent races and makes synchronizing execution effortless across goroutines. The maximum number of OS threads goroutines can run on may be defined at compile time with the GOMAXPROCS variable.
Pro Simplified C-like syntax that is as easy to read and write as Python
The language is designed in a manner that seems logical. Syntax is simplified to reduce burden on the programmer and compiler developers.
Pro Great team working behind it
Go has a solid team of engineers working on it (some of the best networking engineers in the world are working on Go). Up until now, the great engineering of the language has compensated for its lack of power.
Pro API documentation is rich in content; easy to memorize
Only features deemed critical are added to the language to prevent cruft from working it's way into the language. The language is small enough to fit inside one's head without having to repeatedly open documentation. Documentation is hosted on an official webpage in a manner that is simple to read and understand.
Pro The go compiler compiles binaries instantly — as fast as a scripting language interpreter
Compiled binaries are fast — about as fast in C in most cases. Compiles on every OS without effort — truly cross-platform compiler. As a result of the fast compilation speed, you can use the gorun program to use go source code as if it was a scripting language.
Pro Built-in unit testing
The idiomatic approach to writing a Go software project is to perform test-driven development with unit testing. Every source code file should have an associated *_test.go file which tests functions in the code.
Pro Easy to install and configure; simple to compile software
Go software can be immediately installed, regardless of your operating system, package manager, or processor architecture with the go get command. Software is compiled statically by default so there is no need to worry about software dependencies on the client system. Makefiles and headers are no longer necessary, as the package system automatically resolves dependencies, downloads source code and compiles via a single command: go build.
Pro Provides tools for automatically formatting code for your entire software project
This helps keep every programmer on the same page in a project and eliminates arguments over formatting styles.
Pro Programmers don't have to argue over what 10% subet of the language to implement in their software project
The language promotes programming in a specific idiomatic style, which helps keep every programmer on the same page.
Pro Great language for building networking services
Go was started as a systems language but now it has fully committed in the niche of networking services. This has been a brilliant move by Go because it allows them to capitalize on the immense talent of the Go engineering team (who are in the most part network engineers).
In a world dominated by Java EE and slow scripting language, Go was a breath of fresh air and it continues to be one of the most powerful languages if you want to build networking services.
Pro Supports 'modules' in the form of packages.
Every Go source file contains a package line that indicates which package a file belongs to. If the name of the package is 'main', it indicates that this is a program that will be compiled into a binary. Otherwise, it will recognize that it is a package.
Pro Automatically generates API documentation for installed packages
Godoc is provided to automatically generate API documentation for Go projects. Godoc also hosts it’s own self-contained web server that will list documentation for all installed packages in your Go path.
Pro Demonstrates a unique, simple concept to object-oriented programming.
All types are essentially objects, be they type aliases or structs. The compiler automatically associates types to their methods at compile time. Those methods are automatically associated to all interfaces that match. This allows you to gain the benefits of multiple inheritance without glue code. As a result of the design, classes are rendered obsolete and the resulting style is easy to comprehend.
Pro Supports splitting source code into multiple files
As long as every source code file in a directory has the same package name, the compiler will automatically concatenate all of the files together during the compilation process.
Pro Multiple variables may be assigned on a single line
This conveniently eliminates the need to create temporary variables.
Fibonacci example: x, y = y, x+y
Pro Syntax for exported code from a package is simplified to be less verbose than other languages
Any variable, type and function whose name begins with a capital letter will be exported by a project, while all other code remains private. There is no longer a need to signify that a piece of code is 'private' or 'public' manually.
Pro Supports functional programming techniques such as function literals
This naturally also supports first class and high order functions, so you may pass functions as variables to other functions.
Pro Performance is on the order of C and Java
Go is blazing fast, but easier to write than Python, JS, Ruby, or many other dynamic languages.
Cons
Con Won't get you a job
Scratch is not a language used in the workplace. Instead it teaches computational thinking, helping to create a foundation to aid in learning other languages.
Con Does not teach you programming
Learning Scratch might help you if you have high difficulty with logical thinking. However, starting with a proper programming language, especially an easy one, will give you the benefits of starting with something like Scratch and everything else.
Con Hard to abstract even the simplest notions
Go is famously regarded as very simple. However, this simplicity becomes problematic in time. Programmers who use Go find themselves over and over again writing the same thing from a very low point of view. Domains not already served by libraries that are easy to glue are very difficult to get into.
Con Designed to make the programmer expendable
Go was designed for large team projects where many contributors may be incompetent. That Go can still get things done under these conditions is a testament to its utility in this niche. Go's infamously weak abstraction power is thus a feature, not a bug, meant to prevent your teammates from doing too much damage. This also means any team member can be easily replaced by another code monkey at minimum cost. Good for the company, bad for you. The more talented programmers, on the other hand, will be very frustrated by having one hand tied behind their back.
Con Expects prior familiarity with tooling, "advanced" OS use
A standard step of even installing Go is modifying your path -- a person who's encountering their first language might not even understand. It's hard to escape using Go without familiarity with using build tools, managing and organizing project directories, etc. It's not as simple as Python's "just run the .py file with the interpreter."
Con Requires specific directory structure and environment variable settings
Too much knowledge required for a first programming language.
Con Performance slowdown because of indirect calls and garbage collection
Practically no meaningful Go application can be written without indirect function calls and garbage collection, these are central to Go's core infrastructure. But these are major impediments to achieving good performance.
Con No forms designer
I'm probably an old fart, but being a long time Visual Studio developer, I'm used to the luxury of having a forms designer for rapid development.
Con Easy to shadow variable
Due to single character only difference, declare and assign statement can easily shadow variable from outer scope unconsciously. Example:
err := nil
if xxx {
err := somefunctionthatreturnsanerr
}
return err // always return nil
Con Implementation of interfaces are difficult to figure out
Finding out what interfaces are implemented by a struct requires a magic crystal ball. They are easy to write, but difficult to read and trawl through.
Con Does not support circular dependencies
