Introducing Go

Introduction

Although originally designed by Google for the kinds of problems Google works on—large, distributed network applications—Go is now a general-purpose programming language useful in a wide variety of software domains. Many companies have started using Go because of its simplicity, ease of use, performance, low barrier of entry, and powerful tooling.

This book was written to help new programmers learn Go. Although there is an abundance of technical resources available for Go, most are geared toward experienced engineers. My goal here is to provide a more gentle introduction to the language.

Who Should Read This Book

This book is written for relatively inexperienced programmers who know nothing about Go. Although not exhaustive, it does cover all of the basics, and should leave you well positioned to tackle the more advanced material available on the language. The book also covers rudimentary programming skills via the exercises at the end of each chapter.

Navigating This Book

This book is organized as follows:

• Chapters 1 through 4 introduce the Go toolset and the basics of the language

• Chapters 5 through 7 describe more complex types and functions

• Chapters 8 and 9 describe packages and testing

• Chapter 10 introduces concurrency

For best results, the book should be read in order, as each chapter builds on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters. Each chapter ends with a set of exercises, and it’s important to actually complete them—it’s by solving problems ...