I was introduced to Go back in 2017, but still being a beginner and learning Python3 at the time, I passed on it. Towards the middle of 2018, I ended up picking up Go as I had ran into issues with Python’s GIL when creating a data collection web crawler component for an open source AI/ML pipeline I was creating. This forced me to look for alternatives, and fortunately I had been suggested Go by my good friend the year prior.

This lead me down the rabbit hole of learning about web crawling, search engines, concurrency, and a lot of other really awesome topics. It also lead me to learn Go (Goccer referenced below) by porting my Python3 program. You can still view the original Python3 project (Open Collection or OC) referenced below.

The downside of learning this way, is that I missed out on learning very important parts (like GoDoc) of the language early on, the biggest being testing. Though I have picked up on pieces, there are various things that I still need to properly learn.

Fortunately there is an awesome project called Learn Go With Tests, which is a free and open source resource to (as the name implies) learn Go through Test-Driven Development (TDD). I have always put off taking the time to properly learn Go cause there are so many things that I want to create and do right now. As part of my “Making Good Habits”, I am going back and re-learning Go from the ground up.

My reasoning for choosing this resource over others available, is because this is the only one I’ve found that has a specific TDD approach.

If you are new to programming or are considering learning Go for whatever reason, I encourage you to write your own, but below is an example of a simple Go program/test. If you are wondering why tests are necessary, then imagine maintaining/debugging a medium to large codebase. For a concrete example, put yourself in the perspective of a web developer. One common aspect of websites are web forms, which are a component that introduces functionality that can fail. Manual testing of things like forms becomes time consuming, and so the better option is to write a test and run it whenever a change is introduced.

// main.go
package main

import "fmt"

func PrintHelloWorld() string {
    return "hello, world!"
}

func main() {
    fmt.Println(PrintHelloWorld())
}

// main_test.go
package main

import "testing"

func TestPrintHelloWorld(t *testing.T) {
    expected := "hello, world!"
    actual := PrintHelloWorld()

    if actual != expected {
        t.Errorf("\nExpected: %s\nActual: %s", expected, actual)
}

Learning Go With Tests (LGWT)