Go vs Scala

Difference Between Go and Scala

Both Go vs Scala has their own advantages and Limitations. This depends upon the nature of the project and the client’s requirement specifications. GO – which is often called as GOlang, is a Programming language (PL) developed by Google.  It’s a statically typed, compiled language in the tradition of C. The tools, compiler and source code are free and open source. SCALA – It’s a general-purpose programming language that provides support for functional programming and a strong static type system. (Source-Wiki).

Head To Head Comparison Between Go and Scala (Infographics)

Below is the top 8 difference between Go vs Scala

Key Differences Between Go and Scala

Both are popular choices in the market; let us discuss some of the major difference:

While choosing programming languages, every company does some calculations, or you can say observation (from past experiences). Some of these are discussed below.

• Lesser code work is easier to understand
• The person who frequently uses a set of code or maintains it is not the one who created it (often).

Writing a code is more of communication, not just between author and compiler but also between author and future readers (unknown skill level). These factors are crucial to determine at the project’s planning phase to avoid hindrance in delivery and smooth operations.

1. Simplicity – Go is more simple compared to Scala. The language specification page for Scala is more than 191 pages, whereas GO has only 51 pages and so. This simplicity is crucial for the team to decide to move swiftly into a project.

2. RISC and CISC – A CPU’s architecture can be of RISC and CISC model.

RISC(Reduced Instruction Set Computing)

CISC(Complex Instruction Set Computing)

RISC model uses only the simpler commands that further gets subdivided into many instructions to achieve low-level operation within a single CLK cycle just the way its name suggests reduced instruction set computing.

3. CISC – Here, a single instruction can perform several low- level operations just the way it is pronounced. These low-level operations can be either of these memory load, Athematic operations etc.

Back to Scala vs Go based on this model, GO provides a simpler and smaller set of orthogonal primitives that easily interact with ease and expected. A developer can easily build his need by learning a small number of primitives, whereas SCALA has a huge toolbox set and syntax. One has to learn in detail and understand when to use these primitives for writing a few lines of code.

4. Practical

Let’s see a case comparing these two practices. Consider fetching a user id from a cookie.
Try to understand this case and analyze how much coding understanding is needful before one can do this.

• What if the cookie is not present?
• If the cookie value is not in standard format number?
• And also, what if the cookie assigned value is a negative one?

SCALA Code:

import play.api.mvc.RequestHeader
def getUserId()(implicit request: RequestHeader) = {
cookies.get("uid").map(_.value.toLong).filter(_ > 0)
}

GO Code:

import (
"fmt"
"http"
"strconv"
)
func getUserId(r *http.Request) (int64, error) {
c, err := r.Cookie("uid")
if err != nil {
return 0, err
}
i, err := strconv.ParseInt(c.Value, 10, 64)
if err != nil {
return 0, err
}
if i <= 0 {
return 0, fmt.Errorf("invalid user id")
}
return i, nil
}

Here one can see that the SCALA code is smaller compared to GO, but the thing is to GO is explicit, whereas SCALA requires context to understand.

Explicit codes are easier to understand for novice

Explicit code is easier to edit the changes

One can easily understand the error for explicit codes

These are even easier to debug.

5. Scalable concurrent solution

Talking of Scala vs Go, it is worth noticing that what these PL can offer your company.
SCALA is a persistent data structure, functional programming using first-class and closure, Software transactional memory, whereas GO is a lightweight machine code language, based on concepts of goroutines and UNIX pipe-like channels, high-speed compilation and simple abstraction mechanism.

Go vs Scala Comparison Table

Below is the topmost comparison

The basis of comparison	GO	SCALA
Initially release date	10 November 2009	20 January 2004;
Stable release	1.10.3 / 5 June 2018	2.12.6 / 27 April 2018
Typing discipline	Strong, static, inferred and structural	Static, strong, inferred and structural
Filename extensions	.go	.scala and .sc
Designed and developed	Robert Griesemer Rob Pike Ken Thompson Developed by Google	Martin Odersky Developed by Programming Methods Laboratory
Implementation Language	Go, assembly language, C++	Scala
Advantages	Static code analysis Built-in testing and profiling framework Learning curve	Object-Oriented and Functional Coding Paradigms Java Compatibility and Interoperability Functional, Advanced Features
Features	Binaries Language Design Powerful standard library Package Management Static Typing Concurrency Support Testing Support	Type inference Singleton object Immutability Lazy computation Case classes and Pattern matching Concurrency control String interpolation Higher-order function Traits Rich collection set

Conclusion

SCALA is built on top of JVM. SCALA supports built-in through a variety of built-in classes and 3^rd party frameworks. GO provides concurrency in the form of goroutines and channels. A PL features and compatibility decides whether it will fit the available resources of the team or not. Factors like code availability, understanding behavior, complexity to write code and understand by others.

Recommended Article

This has been a guide to the top difference between Go vs Scala. Here we also discuss the key differences with infographics and comparison table. You may also have a look at the following Go vs Scala articles to learn more –

1. C++ vs Go
2. Node.js vs Go
3. Python vs Scala
4. Scala vs Java Performance