rob pike in Elk: "We have been public about not using Go as ..."

We have been public about not using Go as the bootstrap language. We started with a compiler in C for a number of reasons, mostly for ease of bootstrapping but also to avoid making a compiler-optimized language instead of a general purpose one. Once the language was designed, we ported the code to Go for ease of maintenance and development.

Well here is a variant of that pattern: the TypeScript compiler is also being ported to Go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNlq-EVld70

The video is worth watching for the reasons why. Turns out a general purpose language is indeed a good compiler language.

YouTube

A 10x faster TypeScript

March 12, 2025 at 10:33:12 PM

Also just a warning: If you use this post as a chance to criticize Go because of some opinion about its technical shortcomings, I've heard it all before and have no desire to hear more. I will simply block you.

I honestly think go is a great language for compiler development. Its GC performance profile works really well for the kinds of workloads you see in a compiler, plus the great concurrency story.

Like, nah, go isn't my favorite language to work in, but it's a really, really good fit for this.

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the compile and run anywhere without dependency handling is what makes it the first choice for tool chains like this I think. It’s the ergonomics of just having a binary.

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Some positivity seems warranted: I love working with go. Thank you.

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Did you ever try Swift?

To add to the answer for why Go: A post by one of the devs on github makes it clear that the biggest factor that favored Go was its ability to replicate the structure of the existing TS codebase with minimal translation.

https://github.com/microsoft/typescript-go/discussions/411