Go 2022 Q2 Survey: Surprising Insights on Generics, Fuzzing, and Security

Main Findings

Generics have been quickly adopted; about a quarter of respondents have started using them, though many encounter early implementation limitations.

Fuzzing (fuzz testing) is new to most Go developers, with awareness far lower than for generics and uncertainty about when to apply it.

Third‑party dependencies represent the most critical security issue, with developers struggling to avoid known vulnerable packages; security work is often unplanned and lacks clear ROI.

The Go team could improve communication of new features, as randomly sampled participants are less aware of recent tool versions compared to those who discover the survey via the official blog.

Error handling remains a challenge, especially after generics were introduced; despite this, overall satisfaction with Go stays high.

Awareness and Adoption of Generics

86% of respondents know that generics are part of Go 1.18. Approximately 26% have begun using them, with 14% employing generics in production code. While 54% are not opposed to generics, they do not yet feel a need for them, and 8% want to use them but are blocked by other factors.

Barriers to Using Generics

About 30% cite current generic implementation limits—such as missing parameterized methods, type inference improvements, or verbose code—as obstacles. Another common blocker is lack of linter support, along with reliance on older Go versions or Linux distributions that do not yet support generics. Additionally, 12% find the learning curve steep or lack sufficient documentation.

Typical Go Use Cases

The two most common applications are building API/RPC services (73%) and writing command‑line tools (60%). A linear model analysis shows developers with less than one year of Go experience are more likely to experiment with GUI, IoT, game development, ML/AI, or mobile applications, whereas those with more experience focus less on these areas.

Development Environments and Deployment

Most developers work on Linux (59%) or macOS (52%), and 93% deploy their Go applications to Linux systems. The survey also introduced a WSL development option, selected by 13% of respondents.

Preferred Editors

Visual Studio Code, a free open‑source editor, is the dominant choice (45%), followed by GoLand (34%).

For the complete report, visit: https://go.dev/blog/survey2022-q2-results