Go Versions

Keeping the compiler up-to-date

25 February 2021

Releases

• New major releases twice a year, usually in February and August
• 1.14 and 1.15 in 2020
• 1.16 in 2021
• Each release is upported until there are two new major releases
• 1.5 was supported until 1.7
• 1.6 was supported until 1.8
• Minor releases once or twice a month

Why upgrade

• It's not (just) about new features
• Major versions also includes improved compilation/runtime performance
• Minor versions includes both fixes and security fixes
• Go 1 promise of compatibility

Real-life example

Went to a random project and ran:

$ git log -p .go-version

• 1.10 -> 1.11 in Nov 2018
• 1.11 -> 1.13 in Dec 2019
• 1.13 -> 1.14 in Jun 2020
• No minor upgrades between major ones

Automated upgrades

Image: xkcd: Is It Worth the Time?

Other upgrade strategies

• Avoid .0 releases?
• Relaxing minor version pinning
• Scheduled upgrades

Thank you