Practical Go

Introduction

Google announced the Go programming language to the public in 2009, with the version 1.0 release announced in 2012. Since its announcement to the community, and the compatibility promise of the 1.0 release, the Go language has been used to write scalable and high-impact software programs ranging from command-line applications and critical infrastructure tools to large-scale distributed systems. The Go language has made a huge contribution to the growth of a number of modern software success stories. For a number of years, my personal interest in Go has been due to its, for the lack of a better word, boring nature—that's what I like about it. It felt like it combined the power of the second programming language I learned, C, with the batteries-included approach of another favorite language of mine, Python. As I have written more programs using the Go language, I have learned to appreciate its focus on providing all the necessary tools and features to write production-quality software. I have often found myself thinking, “Will I be able to implement this failure-handling pattern in this application?” Then I look at the standard library package documentation, and the answer has always been a resounding “Yes!” Once you have grasped the fundamentals of Go, with almost zero effort on your part as the software developer, the result is a highly performant application out of the box.

My goal in this book is to showcase the various features of the Go language and the standard ...