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Practical Systems Programming in Go
book

Practical Systems Programming in Go

by Mihalis Tsoukalos
March 2026
Intermediate
588 pages
14h 46m
English
Packt Publishing

Overview

Master systems programming in Go by building real command-line tools, web services, time-series analysis applications, and concurrent networked systems that interact directly with the operating system.

Key Features

  • Build real-world systems tools in Go, including CLIs, servers, and interpreters.
  • Master Go systems programming concepts, such as concurrency, networking, and OS integration.
  • Apply Go to data-intensive workloads, including time series analysis and data mining.

Book Description

Go has become a leading language for Systems Programming thanks to its simplicity, strong concurrency model, and excellent performance. Practical Systems Programming in Go shows how to use Go beyond application development by building software that interacts with the operating system, networks, and data at scale.

The book starts with a focused introduction to Go, covering the language features and standard packages most relevant to systems programming, including those handling concurrency, interfaces, testing, and runtime internals. It then moves into essential system-level topics such as file handling and I/O, UNIX signals, file systems, structured data formats, databases, and TCP/IP networking. Readers build practical command-line tools, web services, and network clients and servers along the way. In the final section, the book explores advanced applications, including writing an interpreter for a small programming language, processing time series data, building data-mining tools, and creating efficient indexes for UNIX file systems.

By the end, readers will be able to design and implement robust systems software in Go for real-world environments.

What you will learn

  • Create command-line utilities using Go
  • Work with files, directories, and UNIX signals
  • Build TCP/IP clients and servers in Go
  • Write concurrent programs using goroutines and channels
  • Develop web services and networked applications
  • Implement interpreters for custom programming languages
  • Process and analyze time series data
  • Understand Go internals and system-level performance

Who this book is for

This book is for intermediate Go developers who want to build low-level and performance-oriented software. It is ideal for backend engineers, DevOps practitioners, and system programmers interested in writing command-line tools, network services, and concurrent applications that interact closely with UNIX-like operating systems.

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781806112197