Author: Mike McGrath
Publisher: In Easy Steps
Date: January 2021
Pages: 192
ISBN: 978-1840789195
Print: 1840789190
Kindle: B08NF958NM
Audience: Non-programmers wanting to learn to code in Go
Rating: 5
Reviewer: Mike James
Getting going with Go - great idea!

Go is a popular language and as long as you stick to simple things it is simple to learn and easy to get started with. Go might even be considered a reasonable first language, but I think Python is a better choice. I picked up this book because these days I only occasionally write in Go and I needed a refresher. It turned out to fit the bill very well. "In Easy Steps" books follow a standard form - they are in color, are short and to the point and generally don't have long examples.

Chapter 1 is the usual getting started which is fairly easy with Go. The first programs are written using NotePad and running from the command prompt. The final section introduces Visual Studio Code and this is the best way to continue your exploration of Go, but it often isn't easy. Unless you already know VS Code it will take time to get over its many gotchas and in most cases you are going to have to resort to the web to get things working - it is worth the effort.

Chapters 3 and 4  introduce the basics of Go - variables, data types and flow of control. This is the sort of information that holds for most programming languages with minor variations.

Chapter 5 introduces functions which are Go's main organizational unit as it isn't really a fully-fledged object-oriented language. It does however support anonymous functions and closure, both of which are covered.

Chapter 6 deals with Go's object-oriented features - how structs can include functions and perform the duties of an object.

From here we move into the data side of Go.Chapters 7 to 10 cover arrays and slices, using dates and times, working with strings and handling files and user input.

Chapter 11 is a brief introduction to concurrency with Go - one of the language's strong points. It deals with Goroutines and channels reasonably well.

Chapter 12 is about using Go to implement web applications and for this you need to be sure you understand concurrency and know something about how the web works.

Overall this is a great introduction to Go if you are in a hurry and not a complete dummy. It won't make you an expert, but it will get you more than started. It doesn't have any large scale examples, but for me this is a plus point. It is also too short to cover everything, but for its size it covers enough.

Highly recommended if you want a Go refresher.

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