Intro to Golang
05 December 2016

Vincent Batts
Developer
@vbatts
vbatts@redhat.com
https://github.com/vbatts/talks

* howdy

	$> finger $(whoami)
	Login: vbatts                           Name: Vincent Batts
	Such mail.
	Plan:
	right and joyful effort
	$> id -Gn
	devel redhat oci containers openshift slackware docker

: Surview folks familiarity with golang. And with their primary language.

* golang

:  Notes
: - libraries - source only, but can link to C *.so and *.a
: - Fork/Exec are coupled together (for coroutine and GC reasons)
: - Threading, and multiproc, concurrent logic
:  -- nice and easy to use
:  -- Make for tricky handling of C calls (i.e. setns)
: - `go get` is handy
: - cross-compile without hardly any bootstrapping
:  -- native compiler supported arches
:  -- gccgo works for the arch gcc is compiled for
: - primitives can seem a bit magical
:  -- conditional returns
:  -- for ... range
:  -- iota
: - no ifdefs, but build tags
: - error handling, rather than exception catching


* 

.image ./gopher.png


* Overview

- strongly typed
- compiled
- stylistically nice
- opinionated/idiomatic


* 

.image ./rainbow.jpg


* fully qualified imports

.code ./imports.go /START1/,/STOP1/


* fast compiles

(Perhaps other compilers are slow)

.play ./hello.go /START1/,/STOP1/


* defer

.code -numbers ./good0.go /START1/,/STOP1/


* Garbage Collected

- Super convenient
- references
- completed goroutines


* Garbage Collected

.link https://twitter.com/brianhatfield/status/634166123605331968 Brian Hatfield GC improvements

- go1.4 (300ms) -> go1.5 (~30ms)
- go1.6.0 (25ms) -> go1.6.3 (5ms)
- go1.7.3 (3ms) -> go1.8beta1 (sub ms on 18Gb heap)


* simple exports

.code ./good1.go /START1/,/STOP1/


* concurrency

.play -numbers ./pingpong.go /STARTMAIN1/,/STOPMAIN1/
.link http://talks.golang.org/2013/advconc.slide Sameer Ajmani - Advanced Concurrency


* cross compiles

: this could be demo'ed by scp'ing the binaries to fats.userys (aarch64) and piaba.usersys (arm v7)

(staying away from CGO)

.play ./hello.go /START1/,/STOP1/

	$> go build ./main.go
	$> file main
	main: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, not stripped
	$> GOOS=windows GOARCH=386 go build ./main.go
	$> file main.exe
	main.exe: PE32 executable (console) Intel 80386 (stripped to external PDB), for MS Windows
	$> GOOS=openbsd GOARCH=arm go build ./main.go
	$> file main
	main: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, ARM, version 1 (OpenBSD), statically linked, for OpenBSD, not stripped
	$> GOARCH=arm64 go build ./main.go
	$> file main
	main: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, ARM aarch64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, not stripped


* helpers

- `go get golang.org/x/tools/cmd/godoc`
- `go get github.com/golang/lint/golint`
- https://github.com/fatih/vim-go

- `go vet ./...`
- `go test ./...`
- `golint -set_exit_status ./...`


* 
.image ./kanye_imma_bookmarklet.png 250 _
.caption _kanye_ by Kayne

- easy learning curve
- `go get`
- formatting wars are "over"
- shared libraries


* 

: they come along, and affect how you do your work
.image ./cats20.gif
.caption _halping_hooman_ by cat


* Packaging

Addresses different concern than distributions


* lack of generics?

: i don't feel strongly about this, though many do
- interfaces - are enough for most
- go1.4 introduced go:generate
: produce code for Set, Graph etc, for the types needed, but at compile time. No need to reflect.


* Debugging

- gdb is there, sort of
- some known debugging tools for ELF are not useful
- fmt.Printf("%#v\n", ...)
: show break on main.main and fmt.Println
: continue, list, then step, then list, and then face melt


* Concurrency and CGO

Calls like setns(2) are rough

(yes, even with runtime.LockOSThread())

Embedding other languages (like ruby and python that have their green threading)


* Fork/Exec

Not Separate, but together


* 
.image ./revenge-of-the-nerds-o.gif
.caption _dancin'_ in ROTN


* build tags

no #ifdef

.code ./tags.go /START1/,/STOP1/

or files with *_linux.go like suffix.

More like extern.


* _

bit bucket


* channels

.play ./ugly0.go /START1/,/STOP1/


* iota

.code ./ugly1.go /START1/,/STOP1/


* for range

array (or string)

.play ./primitive1.go /START1/,/STOP1/


* for range

map

.play ./primitive2.go /START1/,/STOP1/


* for range

channel (like an iterator)

.play ./primitive3.go /START1/,/STOP1/


* for range

channel

.code ./primitive3.go /START2/,/STOP2/


* Conclusions?


* use-case

- like all languages, align with you use-case
- get familiar enough to like and dislike it
- don't be afraid to try it out


* References

.link https://golang.org/doc/ Go Documentation
.link https://golang.org/doc/effective_go.html Effective Go