Heavy Networking 617: Go Vs. Python For Network Engineers

If you’re a network engineer picking up on automation, you’ve probably spent some time with Python. Python is a scripting language–an interpreted language. You don’t have to compile your code down to an executable. Instead, your code is interpreted for you at runtime. Add to that all the convenient libraries that the open source community and networking vendors have contributed to Python, and you might feel like it’s the right place to be for your automation hacking needs. That is an easy argument to make, and you’ve heard me make it myself on occasion. Our guest today is Darren Parkinson, and Darren blogged a somewhat contrarian position. His take is that you should, as a network engineer, learn Go. Go? Isn’t that a more, um, grown-up language just for professional developers? I mean…I’d need to figure out this whole compiling thing, and is there good network automation library support like I have in Python that makes my life so easy? I’m going to talk through all of this and more with Darren, letting him make the case that Go is worth your time and effort to learn. He makes a good case as laid out in his blog post on the topic, which is linked below. Sponsor: CBT Nuggets CBT Nuggets is IT training for IT professionals and anyone looking to build IT skills. You can sign up for a FREE CBT Nuggets trial. There’s no credit card required to sign up and you’ll have access to the entire training library. Visit cbtnuggets.com/heavynetworking. Sponsor: Pluribus Pluribus delivers cloud networking solutions that dramatically reduce complexity and increase business velocity for enterprises and service providers in the distributed multi-cloud era. Mark your calendar for a special event on March 16 to see how Pluribus is revolutionizing cloud networking – for good. Don’t miss it! Sign up at pluribusnetworks.com/cloudnetworking. Show Links: Why Network Engineers Should Learn Go – darrenparkinson.uk @darrenparkinson – Darren on Twitter Go.dev Effective Go The Go Programming Language (Book) – Gopl.io Concurrency In Go (Book) – O’Reilly Media Show 270: Design & Build 9: Automation With Python And Netmiko – Packet Pushers John Capobianco’s Infrastructure As Software Blog Series – Packet Pushers