Learning Go

Getting started with Go

Posted by Ceaser Larry on July 2, 2016

Since writing about Middleman and a server-less site, I’ve had to work on a few projects in several different languages. Now that I have some time to work on my projects, I’ve found myself thinking about the technologies I’ve used recently.

Ruby and Rails has been my primary language and framework since 2006 when it changed my entire view of web development. In 2012, I started feeling like there was trouble in paradise, as the community begin to move away from what I felt was the benefits of Ruby on Rails, but it’s still the incumbent.

I returned to J2EE for a project. Some of the latest features are nice, but it’s still trying to bring Rails to Java developers. Not a framework or language I would like to use daily.

I spent two years dedicated to Objective-C and iOS. I’ve always enjoyed writing Objective-C, brackets and all. I learned Apple’s latest language Swift and was surprised that is wasn’t as dynamic as Ruby, but it didn’t feel that was an issue.

Then I started learning Go, and it’s like 2006 all over again. It feels like a dynamic language but concise and very, very fast. Reminds me when I first learned to program C, but with the sharp corners rounded off. I’m enjoying having predictable performance without sacrificing productivity. Also, a single binary that is easy and fast to cross compile for Windows, Linux, OS X and even a Raspberry PI.

Go is quickly becoming my favorite language.

If you want to learn more about Go, here are the links to the essential reading to get started.

Tour of Go
https://golang.org

How to Write Go Code
https://golang.org/doc/code.html

Go By Example
https://gobyexample.com