Learning Go

Course details

Go, also known as Golang, is one of the most popular programming languages for command line applications, web services, and the cloud. In this course, learn the basics of Go, using GitHub Codespaces as your development environment. See how to use the fundamental building blocks of Go applications: variables, collections, conditional logic and loops. Instructor David Gassner also covers practical uses of Go, such as working with files, requesting and processing content from the web, and working with data structured as JSON strings.

Learning objectives
Use variables, constants, and types.
Group related values in structs.
Create conditional logic and loops.
Program concurrent operations with goroutines.
Work with files and web requests.

Concepts

Introduction

Learn to program with Go
What you need to know
Use code challenges on CoderPad

Getting Started

Go's essential characteristics
Explore basic Go syntax
Experiment with the Go playground
Using the exercise files in GitHub Codespaces
Create your first Go application
Build an executable application

Manage Simple Variable Values

Explore Go's variable types
Output text to the console
Get input from the console
Using math operators
Using the math package
Work with dates and times

Manage Complex Types and Collections

How memory is allocated and managed
Reference values with pointers
Store ordered values in arrays
Manage ordered values in slices
Store unordered values in maps
Group related values in structs

Manage Program Flow

Program conditional logic with if and else
Evaluate expressions with switch statements
Create loops with for statements

Create Reusable Code

Define and call functions
Define functions as methods of custom types
Run a function as a goroutine

Work with Files and the Web

Write and read local text files
Read a text file from the web
Parse JSON-formatted text

Conclusion

Next steps