Introducing Go

Chapter 1. Getting Started

Go is a general-purpose programming language with advanced features and a clean syntax. Because of its wide availability on a variety of platforms, its robust well-documented common library, and its focus on good software engineering principles, Go is a great programming language to learn.

This book assumes no prior knowledge of Go, and is intended to serve as an easy introduction to the language. All of the language’s core features will be covered in short, concise chapters that should prepare you to write real Go programs and tackle some of the more advanced resources available on the language (online documentation, books, talks, etc.).

Although this book is suitable for inexperienced programmers, if you have never programmed before you will probably find the material too difficult to follow. You may benefit from consulting a more general programming resource before diving into the material here, but in all honesty, most students need the kind of hands-on, personal support that you might find in a classroom setting or one on one with an experienced developer.

Machine Setup

This book contains many code samples and exercises. For best results, you should try to run these examples on your own computer as you work your way through each chapter.

But before you can write your first Go program, there are a few things you will need to set up.

Text Editors

Go is a very readable, succinct language and so any text editor will work for editing files. There are ...