Using Containers to Connect Your Go Code to Other Components

Introduction and Motivations

If you’re just starting out with containers, you might be finding it all a bit confusing. Learning about containers is a bit like learning about Linux or about Go—it’s potentially a huge topic! But everyone has to begin somewhere.

This lesson will show you how to use containers to connect your Go code to components on your local development machine, regardless of whether that code is running in a container.

Example Code

The easiest way to download the example code for this lesson is by using the go get command, as demonstrated here:

$ go get github.com/lizrice/hello-container-world/...

Using Docker

If you’re diving into this lesson, you probably already have Docker installed, but if not, there are good instructions available for installing it and verifying that everything is set up correctly. After you’ve done that, you’ll be ready to work through the examples in this lesson.

Note

Docker 1.13 reorganized the command-line interface (CLI) to refer to objects (e.g., docker image build instead of docker build). As of this writing, the older versions work as aliases, but it is more future-proof to become accustomed to the new style.

What Is a Container?

Let’s recap as to what containers are: containers make it possible for you to isolate an application such that the application performs as if it were running on its own private machine, regardless of the actual environment in which it’s ...