Go Tutorials

Go Tutorials Roadmap

Section 1: Introduction and Basics

  • What is Go?
    • Understanding Go's origins, goals (simplicity, efficiency, concurrency).
    • Key features: compiled, garbage-collected, statically-typed, strong support for concurrency.
  • Setting up Go:
    • Installing Go on your operating system (Windows, macOS, Linux).
    • Setting up your Go environment (GOPATH, GOROOT - understanding their roles, especially with Go Modules).
    • Using Go Modules for dependency management.
  • Your First Go Program ("Hello, World!"):
    • Understanding the basic structure of a Go program (package main, func main).
    • Using the fmt package for printing output.
    • Compiling and running a Go program (go build, go run).
  • Basic Syntax:
    • Keywords and identifiers.
    • Comments (single-line and multi-line).
    • Variable declaration and initialization (var, short declaration :=).
    • Data types (int, float, bool, string, etc.).
    • Type inference.
    • Constants (const).
  • Operators:
    • Arithmetic operators.
    • Comparison operators.
    • Logical operators.
    • Assignment operators.
  • Control Flow:
    • Conditional statements (if, else if, else).
    • Switch statements (basic and type switches).
    • Loops (for - Go's only loop keyword).
    • break and continue statements.
  • Functions:
    • Declaring and calling functions.
    • Function parameters and return values.
    • Multiple return values.
    • Named return values.
    • Variadic functions.
  • Pointers:
    • Understanding pointers and memory addresses.
    • Dereferencing pointers.
    • When to use pointers.

Section 2: Data Structures and Collections

  • Arrays:
    • Declaring and initializing arrays.
    • Accessing array elements.
    • Array length.
  • Slices:
    • Understanding slices (dynamic arrays).
    • Creating slices (from arrays, using make, literals).
    • Slice operations (slicing, appending with append).
    • Slice length and capacity.
    • Passing slices to functions.
  • Maps:
    • Declaring and initializing maps.
    • Adding, accessing, and deleting elements.
    • Checking for existence of a key.
    • Iterating over maps.
  • Structs:
    • Defining structs.
    • Creating struct instances.
    • Accessing struct fields.
    • Anonymous structs.
    • Struct embedding (composition).

Section 3: Methods, Interfaces, and Error Handling

  • Methods:
    • Defining methods on structs.
    • Receiver types (value vs. pointer receivers).
    • When to use value vs. pointer receivers.
  • Interfaces:
    • Defining interfaces (sets of method signatures).
    • Implementing interfaces implicitly.
    • Interface values (dynamic type and value).
    • The empty interface (interface{} or any in newer Go).
    • Type assertions and type switches.
  • Error Handling:
    • Understanding Go's error handling philosophy (explicit error return values).
    • The error interface.
    • Creating custom error types.
    • Using errors.New and fmt.Errorf.
    • Wrapping errors (Go 1.13+).
    • Checking for specific error types.
  • Defer, Panic, and Recover:
    • Using defer for cleanup.
    • Understanding panic (unrecoverable errors).
    • Using recover to handle panics (advanced).

Section 4: Concurrency (Goroutines and Channels)

  • Introduction to Concurrency:
    • Understanding concurrency vs. parallelism.
    • Go's approach to concurrency (CSP - Communicating Sequential Processes).
  • Goroutines:
    • Creating goroutines (using the go keyword).
    • Communicating between goroutines (instead of sharing memory).
    • Understanding the Go runtime scheduler.
  • Channels:
    • Creating channels (make(chan Type)).
    • Sending and receiving values on channels.
    • Buffered vs. unbuffered channels.
    • Closing channels.
    • Checking if a channel is closed.
  • Select Statement:
    • Using select to wait on multiple channel operations.
    • Default case in select.
  • Synchronization Primitives (sync package):
    • Understanding the need for synchronization when sharing memory.
    • Mutexes (sync.Mutex) for protecting shared data.
    • WaitGroups (sync.WaitGroup) for waiting for goroutines to complete.
    • Atomic operations (sync/atomic) for low-level synchronization.

Section 5: Packages and Modules

  • Understanding Packages:
    • Organizing code into packages.
    • Exporting (public) vs. unexporting (private) identifiers.
    • Importing packages.
    • Package aliases.
  • Go Modules:
    • Initializing a module (go mod init).
    • Adding and managing dependencies (go get, go mod tidy).
    • Understanding go.mod and go.sum files.

Section 6: Standard Library and File I/O

  • Exploring Key Standard Library Packages:
    • fmt (formatted I/O).
    • io (input/output primitives).
    • os (operating system interaction).
    • strings (string manipulation).
    • strconv (string conversions).
    • time (time and date operations).
    • log (logging).
    • encoding/json (JSON encoding/decoding).
    • net/http (HTTP clients and servers).
  • File Input and Output:
    • Opening and closing files.
    • Reading from files.
    • Writing to files.
    • Handling file errors.

Section 7: Testing and Benchmarking

  • Introduction to Testing in Go:
    • Go's built-in testing framework (testing package).
    • Creating test files (_test.go suffix).
    • Writing test functions (func TestXxx).
    • Running tests (go test).
    • Test coverage.
  • Table Driven Tests:
    • Organizing tests with input and expected output.
  • Benchmarking:
    • Writing benchmark functions (func BenchmarkXxx).
    • Running benchmarks (go test -bench=.).
    • Interpreting benchmark results.
  • Examples:
    • Writing example functions (func ExampleXxx).
    • Using examples in documentation and tests.

Section 8: Advanced Topics (Optional, for later)

  • Context Package (context):
    • Understanding context for managing deadlines, cancellations, and request-scoped values, especially in concurrent operations and HTTP servers.
  • Reflection (reflect package):
    • Understanding reflection for inspecting and modifying types and values at runtime.
    • Caution: Reflection can be complex and should be used judiciously.
  • Unsafe Package (unsafe):
    • Understanding the unsafe package for low-level memory manipulation.
    • Caution: Using unsafe bypasses Go's type safety and garbage collection and should only be used when absolutely necessary.
  • Code Generation (go generate):
    • Using go generate for automating code generation tasks.
  • Profiling Go Programs:
    • Using the pprof package to profile CPU usage, memory allocation, etc.
  • Working with Databases:
    • Using the database/sql package.
    • Using database drivers.
  • Building Web Applications:
    • Using the net/http package to build web servers.
    • Handling requests and responses.
    • Routing.
    • Introduction to popular web frameworks (e.g., Gin, Echo, Chi).
  • Working with gRPC:
    • Introduction to gRPC and Protocol Buffers.
    • Building gRPC services in Go.

Section 9: Best Practices and Ecosystem

  • Go Idioms and Best Practices:
    • Following Go's idiomatic style (go fmt, golint, go vet).
    • Writing clean and maintainable Go code.
    • Effective error handling strategies.
    • Designing concurrent programs.
  • Exploring the Go Ecosystem:
    • Discovering popular Go libraries and tools.
    • Contributing to open-source Go projects.