🦫🐘 Advantages of Migrating from PHP to Go

Welcome to our post on migrating from PHP to Go, In this post, we will explore the benefits of migrating from PHP to Go, based on my experience with both backend languages. We'll discuss key advantages such as improved performance, efficiency, and scalability, along with important considerations to keep in mind. Join us as we delve into how Go can enhance your development experience and help you create robust backend systems! For more insights and to explore my other repositories or access this post in Portuguese, be sure to visit my GitHub profile at my GitHub.

⚡ Performance and Processing Time

📊 Performance Benchmarks

In various benchmarks, Go outperformed PHP in scenarios such as mathematical computations, database operations, web server response times, and file manipulation. Here are some examples:

• 🌲 Binary Trees:
  • Go: 2665ms using 44.2MB of memory
  • PHP: Timeout using 141.7MB of memory.
• 👋 Hello World:
  • Go: 1.5ms with 3.1MB of memory
  • PHP: 52ms with 52.0MB of memory.
• 🌐 Merkle Trees:
  • Go: 1632ms with 39.1MB of memory
  • PHP: 4001ms with 113.7MB of memory.

⏱️ Conditional Processing

• If/Else: Go executes if/else very efficiently due to its compiled nature. Compared to PHP, Go has shorter execution times in both simple and complex conditional structures.
• Switch: The switch in Go is optimized for fast execution, while in PHP it may be less efficient due to runtime interpretation.

🧵 Concurrency

Go was designed with native concurrency support through goroutines, which are lightweight and efficient. This allows multiple tasks to be executed simultaneously without significant overhead, unlike PHP which relies on multithreading or asynchronous libraries that can be less efficient and more complex to implement.

📈 Efficiency and Scalability

🚀 Compilation vs Interpretation

Go is a compiled language, resulting in code that runs directly on the hardware, while PHP is interpreted, which adds overhead during execution. This makes Go applications perform better and use resources more efficiently.

🧠 Memory Management

Go has more efficient memory management due to its static typing and optimized garbage collection. PHP, being dynamically typed, can introduce additional overhead and performance issues in larger applications.

👨‍💻 Development and Maintenance Ease

🖋️ Syntax and Typing

Go's syntax is clean and minimalist, making the code easier to read and maintain. Static typing helps catch errors at compile time, unlike PHP which is dynamically typed and can introduce errors that only appear at runtime.

🔧 Tools and Ecosystem

Go has a robust ecosystem with an extensive standard library that covers many common development needs, from network manipulation to cryptography. Tools like GoReleaser and Air facilitate application development and deployment, and support for monitoring with Prometheus and integration with Docker and Kubernetes enhances operational efficiency.

🧪 Performance Testing with Conditionals

🐘 PHP Test

A little performance test was conducted between using else if command.

💻 Code Used

<?php

// Set the number of iterations to increase the test complexity
$iterations = 1000000;

// First test with else if
$start = microtime(true);
for ($i = 0; $i < $iterations; $i++) {
    $test = null;
    if ('test' == 't') {
        $test = 0;
    } else if ('t' == 't') {
        $test = 1;
    }
}
$end1 = microtime(true);
$executionTime = ($end - $start);

// Displaying information about the test
echo "Test (else if):\n";
echo "Execution time: " . number_format($executionTime, 10) . " seconds\n\n";

?>

📊 Results

[root@test php]# php testif.php
First test (else if):
Execution time: 0.0209980011 seconds

🟡 Go Test

Code Used:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "time"
)

func main() {
    // Set the number of iterations to increase the test complexity
    iterations := 1000000 

    // test
    start := time.Now()
    var test int
    for i := 0; i < iterations; i++ {
        if "test" == "t" {
            test = 0
        } else if "t" == "t" {
            test = 1
        }
    }
    // println added just for using the test variable
    fmt.Println(test) 
    end := time.Now()
    executionTime := end.Sub(start)

    // Displaying information
    fmt.Println("Execution time:", executionTime)
}

📊 Results

[root@test gotest]# go run main.go
1
Execution time: 368.924µs

📉 Results

The execution time of 368.924µs is approximately 0.000368924 seconds.

🏁 Final Result

Comparing the performance between PHP and Go, the results show a significant difference in execution times. In PHP, the average execution time for the test with else if was approximately 0.0209 seconds. In Go the average execution time was approximately 0.000368924 seconds, significantly lower compared to PHP.

This substantial difference in execution time can be attributed to the fundamental differences in programming languages and execution environments. Go is known for its efficiency and optimized performance, resulting in shorter execution times compared to PHP.

⚠️ Considerations and Counterpoints of Using Go

🔄 Excessive Simplicity

Go's simplicity can be a limitation, as the language lacks advanced features found in other languages, such as function overloading and default argument values.

🧪 Young Language

Go is relatively young, meaning it is still under development and may have fewer libraries and tools available compared to more established languages like Java and Python.

📦 Dependency Management

Dependency management in Go can be complicated, with tools like go get that do not manage library versions robustly. This can cause compatibility and stability issues.

🛠️ Error Handling

Error handling in Go can be verbose and repetitive, requiring developers to handle errors explicitly and in detail for every function call.

🔢 Lack of Generics Support

The lack of support for generic functions can lead to code duplication and reduce reusability, impacting development efficiency.

🌐 Smaller Community

Go's community is still growing, which means fewer tutorials, documentation, and community support compared to more popular languages.

📦 Build Size and How to Reduce It

📏 Binary Size

Go binaries can be relatively large, especially for complex applications. This is because Go does not use a virtual machine (VM) but compiles directly to machine code, including all dependencies in the final binary.

🔍 Size Reduction

• Strip Symbols: Use the strip tool to remove debug symbols from the binary, significantly reducing file size.
• UPX Compression: Use UPX (Ultimate Packer for Executables) to compress the binary, further reducing size.
• Build Tags: Use build tags to compile only the necessary parts of the code, excluding optional features that are not used.