Daily Go: Fundamentals

In this chapter we will cover the basic keywords and syntax of the Go language. You'll learn the keywords, operators, and delimiters that make up the language. You'll then move into Syntax and Types. Learn how strings are handled as well as UTF-8 text.

You'll also learn about variables, constants, and iota. Then, using those concepts, how to create structs and initialize them.

Packages are how Go organizes code. It is also how scope and visibility are determined. This chapter will cover both executable and library packages. You will also learn how to create your own package and use it within another package.

Arrays in Go are useful when planning for detailed layout of memory. Using arrays can sometimes help avoid allocation. However, their primary use is for the building blocks of slices.

This chapter will cover the basics of creating, initializing, and indexing an array. It will also cover basic loop constructs and loop control basics.

Slices wrap arrays in Go, and provide a more general, powerful, and convenient interface to data sequences. In this chapter, you will cover slice basics such as creating, initializing, and iteration. You will also learn how to grow a slice, work with subsets of slices, and slice tricks.

Maps are a powerful built-in data structure that associates keys and values. In this chapter you will cover basic map creation, initialization, and iteration. You will discover how to determine if values exist in maps and how to update and delete map values.

A pointer is a type that holds the address to the value of a variable. In many languages, pointers are a source of pain and confusion. Go has made it easy to use and understand pointers. In this chapter you will learn about the difference between pass by value and pass by reference. You will learn how to declare pointers, and how to reference values as pointers. The chapter will discuss performance and security and when to use pointers as well.

Functions in Go are a primitive type. This chapter will cover how to declare and call functions. You will cover how to send zero or many arguments, as well as receive zero or many arguments. Variadic arguments, defers, and panics will also be covered.

Interfaces in Go provide a way to specify the behavior of an object: if something can do this, then it can be used here. This chapter will take a look at how to use interfaces to abstract that behavior. Concepts such as the Empty Interface, satisfying multiple interfaces, and asserting for behavior will be covered. Additionally this chapter will cover the difference between value and pointer receivers and how they affect the ability to satisfy an interface.

Error handling in Go can feel a bit tedious at first. However, this chapter will cover the benefits of how Go's error model results in more reliable code. This chapter will also cover how to handle basic errors, return errors as an interface that satisfies the error type. Concepts such as custom error types, panics, recovering from panics, and sentinel errors are also covered.

Concurrent programming in many environments is made difficult by the subtleties required to implement correct access to shared variables. Go encourages a different approach in which shared values are passed around on channels and, in fact, never actively shared by separate threads of execution.

This chapter will cover concurrency as it pertains to Go, what goroutines are, as well as a basic overview of the scheduler and terminology used.

Go promotes sharing memory by communicating. This chapter covers Go routines and how to synchronize communication between them. Mechanics for synchronization such as WaitGroups and Mutexes are explored along with the corresponding patterns for each.

Channels are a conduit in Go used to communicate between Go Routines. This chapter covers basic channel usage along with the corresponding patterns for each. Find out the difference between a buffered and unbuffered channel, and when to use them. Also discover how to use channels for signaling for concepts such as graceful application shutdown.

Go ships with a powerful testing framework. Tests in Go are written in the Go language, so there is no need to learn another syntax. This chapter will explore basic tests, table driven tests, and sub-tests. Concepts such as race conditions, code coverage, test automation. Understanding test options such as parallel, short testing, timing out tests, and verbose are also covered.

Go does not provide the typical, type-driven notion of subclassing, but it does have the ability to “borrow” pieces of an implementation by embedding types within a struct or interface. This chapter will cover how promotion from embedding works as well how collision and overriding are handled. You will also walk through how to embed types to be able to satisfy a specific interface.

Package context defines the Context type, which carries deadlines, cancelation signals, and other request-scoped values across API boundaries and between processes. Context is used for controlling concurrent subsystems in your application. This chapter will cover the different kinds of behavior with contexts including canceling, timeouts, and values.

Go ships with a strong suite of built in tools. This chapter will go over the most common tools and how to use them in your daily development workflow. In addition to the tools that ship with Go there are a set of very important linters and vetters that can catch runtime bugs as well as significantly improve code quality and performance. This chapter shows what those tools are and how to use them.

Go has the ability to build and cross compile with ease. This chapter will cover the different ways to build your binary and additionally covers concepts for embedding build information such as version and GitHub SHA-1 hash. See how build tags are used to conditionally include specific branches of code by targeting specific platforms or simply using the tags provided.