|  | # Go 1.1 is released | 
|  | 13 May 2013 | 
|  | Tags: release | 
|  | Summary: Go 1.1 is faster, less picky about return statements, and adds method expressions. | 
|  | OldURL: /go-11-is-released | 
|  |  | 
|  | Andrew Gerrand | 
|  |  | 
|  | ## | 
|  |  | 
|  | It is our great pleasure to announce the release of Go 1.1. | 
|  |  | 
|  | .image go1.1/gopherbiplane5.jpg | 
|  |  | 
|  | In March last year we released Go 1.0, and since then we have released three | 
|  | minor "point releases". | 
|  | The point releases were made to fix only critical issues, | 
|  | so the Go 1.0.3 you use today is still, in essence, | 
|  | the Go 1.0 we released in March 2012. | 
|  |  | 
|  | Go 1.1 includes many improvements over 1.0. | 
|  |  | 
|  | The most significant improvements are performance-related. | 
|  | We have made optimizations in the compiler and linker, | 
|  | garbage collector, goroutine scheduler, map implementation, | 
|  | and parts of the standard library. | 
|  | It is likely that your Go code will run noticeably faster when built with Go 1.1. | 
|  |  | 
|  | There are some minor changes to the language itself, | 
|  | two of which are worth singling out here: | 
|  | the [changes to return requirements](https://golang.org/doc/go1.1#return) will | 
|  | lead to more succinct and correct programs, | 
|  | and the introduction of [method values](https://golang.org/doc/go1.1#method_values) provides | 
|  | an expressive way to bind a method to its receiver as a function value. | 
|  |  | 
|  | Concurrent programming is safer in Go 1.1 with the addition of a race | 
|  | detector for finding memory synchronization errors in your programs. | 
|  | We will discuss the race detector more in an upcoming article, | 
|  | but for now [the manual](https://golang.org/doc/articles/race_detector.html) is | 
|  | a great place to get started. | 
|  |  | 
|  | The tools and standard library have been improved and expanded. | 
|  | You can read the full story in the [release notes](https://golang.org/doc/go1.1). | 
|  |  | 
|  | As per our [compatibility guidelines](https://golang.org/doc/go1compat.html), | 
|  | Go 1.1 remains compatible with Go 1.0 and we recommend all Go users upgrade to the new release. | 
|  |  | 
|  | All this would not have been possible without the help of our contributors from | 
|  | the open source community. | 
|  | Since Go 1.0, the core received more than 2600 commits from 161 people outside Google. | 
|  | Thank you everyone for your time and effort. | 
|  | In particular, we would like to thank Shenghou Ma, | 
|  | Rémy Oudompheng, Dave Cheney, Mikio Hara, | 
|  | Alex Brainman, Jan Ziak, and Daniel Morsing for their outstanding contributions. | 
|  |  | 
|  | To grab the new release, follow the usual [installation instructions](https://golang.org/doc/install). Happy hacking! | 
|  |  | 
|  | _Thanks to Renée French for the gopher!_ |