An Introduction to Programming in Go

by Caleb Doxsey

This book is a short, concise introduction to computer programming using the language Go. Designed by Google, Go is a general purpose programming language with modern features, clean syntax and a robust well-documented common library, making it an ideal language to learn as your first programming language.

Genres: Programming, Technology, Computer Science, Go, Coding, Software, Technical

161 pages, ebook

First published September 1, 2012

Reviews

[Sebastian Gebski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very concise, but meaty - a perfect starter that will prepare in 1-2 hours prepare you for a crashcourse with Go.

What's really interesting, it's written in a way that's aimed to be suited for both people who already know programming (and just want to learn Go) and people who never did any programming. Somehow, it really works - I wasn't bored, because all the descriptions are very clear and short in the same time.

Can't imagine a better start with programming Go - good value for a price.

[Uğur Erdem Seyfi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very straightforward book explaining the fundamental features of Go Lang. It's not something that dives into details but more like introducing the programming language and concepts in general. It is easy to read. Fine for those who are first introduced to GoLang.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very quick read, and what appears to be a good overview for Go. The book starts out extremely slow and hints/says it is going to be paced for intro programmers, although about 20% through a beginner would be lost.

The exercises are good, but sometimes the examples felt like they were not illustrative of the why. In one example w/ pointers the code was altered to show how to change a previously given function to be able to change values inside of it, but the function didn't need to and the new function didn't actually change the value. The point was more clearly illustrated later however.

If you know C this is likely to be a good baseline for the language, and being able to bang it out in a few hours makes it worth the read.

[yacoob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being short and concise is both upside and downside for this book.

Good, because it's straight to the point without unnecessary waffling around. Bad, because you're left with an uneasy feeling that there might be more complex mechanisms at play, that you don't know enough about. In the beginning the book tries to be an introduction to programming as well - but it quickly drops that pretense. Worth reading if you already know how to program and are curious about golang.

[Kaido · Rating 3 out of 5]

Same book as Introducing Go: Build Reliable, Scalable Programs
The explanation of interfaces was a bit weak. Too abstract i think for beginners. Better and useful example would be how to open json and read content. Then you got an idea that "File" struct satisfies the io.Reader interface and you can use then json.NewDecoder function that takes in io.Reader interface as parameter to get *Decode pointer and decode it to structure. New skill - how to handle configuration files and also learned what are interfaces.

[Ezequiel Foncubierta · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are a programmer you can read through the contents of this book in one hour. It's a good overview of the Go language's syntax, but it doesn't go deeper in many aspects of the language. Not bad as an introductory book, but it won't make you a Go programmer. Worth for the money though (you can get a copy for free).

[Mirco Blaser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice little introduction to coding in Go.
Used this to help me understand some points made in "A Tour of Go" as it's generally written in an easy to understand way. Decided to read all through it just to make sure I didn't miss anything.
Excited to see what I'll be doing with this!

[Arturo Elías Anton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very very basic level.

This book is very very basic level but if you are not familiar with programming, this book is good how start point for you.

[Mathew Dominic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best place to start learning Golang

[Yazan Monshed · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book is give you a view an golang, but not all. the book is varied short and not for beginner's they just started in the programming world

[Dmitry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very simple book, I literally read it at toilet and in one week was able to write simple programs in Go.

[Prayoga Teguh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Buku ini adalah buku Golang pertama yang saya baca. Bukunya tipis, dan mencakup beberapa materi tentang fitur Google secara singkat. Buku ini menurut saya tidak cocok untuk seorang pemula, apalagi yang baru belajar pemrograman sama sekali.

[Shaon Shaonty · Rating 5 out of 5]

For golang beginners, I do strongly recommend this book to start with.

[Jude Shaieb · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good starting point or a refresher to golang programming language, simple activities for basic concepts for the standard library.

[Ravi Sinha · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a nice little book. It served as a great first introduction to GoLang for me. The beginning chapters almost feel like they are written for total newbies to programming. Toward the middle the book becomes more interesting, and the concepts of defer, panic, goroutines, packages, etc. are explained in a short but clear way. Toward the end, especially in the chapter on core packages, it feels very rushed, but that is to be expected from a book like this. It does a good job at what it claims, and provides a quick tour of GoLang for the intermediate programmer. It's by no means sufficient though; you'll either need to read more or dig into the GoDocs and the source code.

[Štěpán · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very short book, available online. Serves as an excellent reference when starting with the language. I would give five stars, if it contained notes with links to more in-depth materials about individual topics. I'm currently readings Programming in Go: Creating Applications for the 21st Century as well. That's on the other hand too detailed in places, but they go well together.

[Alexei · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Introduction to Programming) in Go

(Introduction to Programing) in Go, or Go For Babies. It's a great bootstrap for people with little prior experience in programming, but you need more to truly understand how Go works, and thankfully there is more on the Web. I recommend that you have the Go spec in hand while reading this to better understand how Go's syntax and semantics work, and also watch the Go Concurrency Patterns talk by Rob Pike when you're finished.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall a descent book for the price. I think I got the ePrint version on Amazon for a few dollars. It does a nice job of introducing the basics. The Book could be organized better and isn't as clear when it gets to more advanced topics of the language. Combine this with the golang material on the web and you've got a good value though.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm fairly sure I wouldn't recommend this as an introduction to programming, which the text sometimes seems to aim at, because it's sort of breezy about concepts beginners have trouble with. But for an experienced developer, it's a nice and clear tutorial on Go's syntax, providing so many examples you can pretty much pick it up at a glance.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An indecisive book, it can't quite decide whether it wants to be an intro to Go or to programming in general. The first few chapters assume a misleading "My First Programming Book" air, but latter sections require knowledge a novice isn't likely to have. A good intro for someone coming over from the Ruby or Python worlds as long as they're not turned off by the slow start.

[Aron]

Great little book covering the basics of Go in a clearly written, easy to read style that takes about an hour start to finish. If you have any familiarity with programming you can skip the first chapter.

Also oddly, it starts out targeting people who have never programmed before but drops this within a few chapters to just provide an overview of the language���s features.

[Piotr Zurek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, quick introduction to Go. The first half tries to be an introduction to programming in general but the second half makes too many assumptions to serve that purpose. It definitely helped me translating idioms from other languages into Go-speak. It's hard to regret the time spent reading such a short book but I feel it was worth it regardless.

[Cesar Ortiz Abreu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Increíble muy buen libro para quienes inician a programar, mi primer libro de Go y quede enamorado con el programa, el autor explica de lo mas básico hasta dar un panorama mas completo. recomendable a quienes inician, los que saben seguro pasaran rápido algunos capítulos pero si inicias en Go es el primero y el mejor libro que e leído :P

[Konrad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very unevenly paced. It starts too slowly, like it was intended for people who have never programmed before, but then it suddenly moves to more advanced topics and only quickly glances through all the interesting bits.

[Joao Trindade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Acceptable introductory book to go.

Starts very slow. Only halfway it starts to be minimally interesting.

I would say it is more indicated to those that have a very small experience with programming languages.

[Yaroslav · Rating 5 out of 5]

Online version of the book is available for free at http://www.golang-book.com/
Short into into the GO language, but exercises at the end of each chapter make this book much more valuable to start with GO programming.

[Glenn Burnside · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief and effective

Great introduction to core syntax and concepts. I appreciated the order of concept introduction. Obviously as a brief intro this is not sufficient as a reference book, but it should be enough to whet your appetite for more.

[Hibiscus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some week points first.
- material is unevenly paced
- concurrency model. channels vs locks/semaphores.
- arg passing by value. Use cases of pointers
- advantages and implementation details of slices vs arrays

Strengths
- std lib overview

[Sébastien · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good introduction to get a taste of the language. At the beginning every concept is explained well but the book becomes sparse and less clear, especially with advanced concepts.

[Davidkjelkerud]

Basic but good intro.