Go has a famous concurrency proverb: “Do not communicate by sharing memory; instead, share memory by communicating.” This is good advice. It’s also misapplied regularly. Channels are not universally better than mutexes — they’re a different tool for a different set of problems. After years of Go in production, here’s when I reach for each. ...
The first thing every Java developer learns about goroutines is that they’re cheap. Start a million of them, no problem. The mental model that follows from this — “goroutines are threads but lighter” — is close enough to be useful and wrong enough to cause confusion. Here’s the refined model. ...
I had written maybe 500 lines of Go before the new role. Within two months it was my primary language. This is the honest transition account — not a “Go vs Java” opinion piece, but what the practical experience of switching felt like. ...