Updated March 18, 2023
Difference between Go and Ruby
Go is an open-source programming language through which one can easily build very simple, reliable and highly efficient software. Go is also known as Golang, which refers to Go-language. The development of Go was started in 2007 at Google, and it was available for Public use in 2009. The three main developers behind the Go language development were Rob Pike, Robert Griesemer and Ken Thompson. Here in Go vs Ruby article, it is given as.
The Golang was developed to create a language that would follow an identical syntax of programming language C and eliminate the irrelevant garbage of the languages such as C++. As a result, Golang deliberately avoids many modern languages characteristics, such as pointer arithmetic, type inheritance, and method and operator overloading. Ruby is also an open-source, object-oriented programming language that is dynamic in nature. Ruby has a very neat and simple syntax that is natural to read and easy to write. It was created by
Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto combined various parts of his favourite languages, i.e. Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp, to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming. There Ruby is also called a language of careful balance. Matz’s idea was to develop a scripting language that was more powerful than Perl and more object-oriented than Python. For the Ruby language, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto quoted that “Ruby is simple in appearance, but it is very complex in the inside, just like a human body”. Ruby was released for public use in the year 1995.
Head to Head Comparison Between Go and Ruby(Infographics)
Below are the top 10 differences between Go vs Ruby:
Key Differences Between Go and Ruby
The unique differences for Go vs Ruby are discussed below:
- Golang programming is very useful to solve both complex and simple multi-threaded tasks; meanwhile, Ruby is good at creating tiny commercial blogs, commercial projects, and personal pages.
- Ruby was developed by one person, i.e. Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, while Golang was developed at Google by a team of developers; those are Rob Pike, Robert Griesemer and Ken Thompson.
- Golang is highly compatible when it is integrated with other parts of the software stack, and it is highly used in a bundle with different stacks like Python and Go or PHP and Go to improve the performance of an application while Ruby has compatibility limited to the most popular databases.
- Golang is a faster programming language as compared to Ruby because Golang doesn’t need to be interpreted.
- Ruby is in demand for DevOps Solutions and Services frameworks like Chef and Puppet, while Golang is considered best for API or backend system.
- Golang takes more lines to write the same code as compared to another C-based language such as Python, while Ruby is a brisk language with useful code generators.
- For testing, Ruby is a great testing framework because testing has its priorities in Ruby and that Ruby is based on the Agile method, while Golang is not used for testing to a great extent.
- Golang is used to create Dropbox, eBay, and Uber, in addition to Google itself, while Ruby is used to developing Airbnb, Basecamp, Github, Shopify, and many more web applications.
- Golang is not an object-oriented language, while Ruby is purely an object-oriented language and everything appears as an object in Ruby.
- Golang is a Statically typed language, while Ruby is a dynamically typed language.
- Golang has automatic memory management, which can be referred to as automatic garbage collection and automatic memory allocation. In Ruby, there is a release of small sets of slots when there is too much memory allocation.
Go vs Ruby Comparison Table
Let’s discuss the top comparison between Go vs Ruby:
| Features | Go | Ruby |
| Paradigm | It is a statically typed, compiled programming language. | It supports multiple paradigms, including object-oriented, procedural and functional programming. |
| Typed | It is a statically typed language. | It is a dynamically typed language. |
| Usage | It is used to solve both complex and simple multithreaded tasks. | Ruby is good at creating tiny commercial blogs, commercial projects and personal pages. |
| Memory | It has automatic memory management, which is
referred to automatic garbage collection and automatic memory allocation. |
In Ruby, memory allocation is sorted with the release of
small sets of slots from time to time. |
| Demand | Golang is in demand for API or backend system. | Ruby is in demand for DevOps.
Solutions and Services frameworks like Chef and Puppet. |
| Object Orientation | Golang is not an object-oriented language, although it provides mild support to object orientation and
functional concepts. |
Ruby is purely an object-oriented language and
everything appears as an object in Ruby. |
| Speed | Golang is faster because it doesn’t need to be interpreted. | Ruby is slower as compared to Golang. |
| Examples of Applications | Dropbox, eBay, and Uber, in addition to Google itself, are created using Golang. | Airbnb, Basecamp, Github,
Shopify are examples of web applications that are developed using Ruby. |
| Compatibility | Golang is highly compatible when it is integrated with other parts of the software stack. | Ruby’s compatibility is limited to the most popular databases. |
| Syntax | Golang takes more lines to write the same code as compared to other C-based
language, i.e. there is a use of lightweight threads in Golang. |
Ruby follows a simple, clean syntax that is easier to read and write. |
Conclusion
Based on the above discussion, Golang is great for both back-end systems of any size and highly scalable network servers. Golang is a competitive language which is according to the modern market trends. It provides developers with high quality and speedy performance, great compatibility with other technologies and a clean environment. Ruby is useful if there is a requirement of rapid result delivery and the quality of performance is not that important.
If there is a requirement from a testing perspective, then Ruby would add-up as the best choice for the testing framework as Ruby is based on the Agile method, and testing has its priorities in Ruby. If the project requires dynamically typed language, Ruby will choose that, and if the project requires statically typed language, then Golang will choose in that case. The choice of language is purely dependent on what are the end goals.
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