[ANN] Get Programming with Go

[Nathan Youngman]

Learn about error handling and concurrent state in the latest release of Get Programming with Go, available from Manning Books.

The first draft is complete. If you have any feedback, now’s the time to get it in, as we are currently editing the book before it goes to production.

https://bit.ly/programminggo

[matthe...@gmail.com]

Go is designed for the modern data center, but its adoption isn’t restricted to the workplace. 

While the garbage collector may point to this, and I’ve previously argued about data centers stepping on other applications’ feet, my understanding is the stated goal is systems programming. This term encompasses anything designed as part of a larger system in my mind; OS drivers and components have been mentioned, the compiler is written in Go, build and other scripts are easy to write in Go, OS CLI tools are great in Go, you’ve mentioned embedded programming, small web servers with database definitely work, and of course data center applications and infrastructure are a major Go target and consumer.

Perhaps something like “Go is designed for programming modern computers and computer systems in English” would be more accurate?

I’ve only looked at the three free chapters, but one thing that stands out to me is the amount of formatting on each page. Although I’m looking on a computer and not at a book, it seems that all of the italics, bolds, blocks, lines, references, pictures, and other formatting add noise. I do think the graphics are creative, slicing the solar system is great.

It’s been asked here about references for new programmers but I didn’t have an answer besides “what do you want to know?”. Can you share your competition here? I’ll mention “Get Programming with Go” in the future.

Thanks,

Matt

[Nathan Youngman]

Hi Matthew,

First of all, thanks for looking at the free chapters and providing feedback.

I think I should reword the paragraph about the data centre, because there is what Go was initially announced as, and then there is the niche that it now occupies -- the later being predominately network services that tend to run in data centres (65% according to https://blog.golang.org/survey2017-results).

I'm not sure if "in English" really describes Go. Languages like Ruby purport to offer English-like syntax (see "Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think") through metaprogramming tricks. On the other hand, Go strives for simplicity and, in my opinion, clarity -- even at the cost of verbosity in some cases. Whereas Ruby "reads like an essay", code written in Go "does what it says."

The book layout isn't final, as it's still in early access. I think it will look much nicer after it goes through the production phase -- finger's crossed. A fair amount of that is outside of my control as the author. Even the book cover is out of my hands, though I can and have given the publisher feedback.

As far as competition, the only book that comes to mind as beginner-oriented is Caleb Doxsey's "Introducing Go" published through O'Reilly. There may be others that I'm not aware of. http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920046516.do I'm not sure if either Caleb's book or ours is suitable for the absolute beginner. Learning something like Scratch may be advisable first, to get the concepts down.

Nathan.

P.S. If you decide to buy a copy or recommend it to others, the discount code 39youngman will give 39% off either the paper book or ebook. Also, my affiliate link earns me a few bucks: https://bit.ly/programminggo

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "golang-nuts" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/golang-nuts/_-35shjZqUU/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to golang-nuts+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Nathan Youngman 
Email: he...@nathany.com
Web: https://nathany.com

[matthe...@gmail.com]

I'm not sure if "in English" really describes Go. Languages like Ruby purport to offer English-like syntax (see "Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think") through metaprogramming tricks. On the other hand, Go strives for simplicity and, in my opinion, clarity -- even at the cost of verbosity in some cases. Whereas Ruby "reads like an essay", code written in Go "does what it says."

Well there’s the capitalization for export rule, the keywords and built-in identifiers are English, and all toolchain comments and API are in English. There's discussion about a transliteration tool and translation strategy here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/golang-dev/BJXwjd3VEfM

Thanks for the discount code.

Matt

To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to golang-nuts...@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[ralphdo...@gmail.com]

I'd recommend specifying your target audience.  That would appear to exclude seasoned C/C++ programmers.

 

[Nathan Youngman]

Yup. The "about this book" section in the front matter does suggest that seasoned C/C++ programmers look elsewhere, though perhaps it could be written more directly, or maybe in more places? Here's a quote from the front matter:

"If you are a polyglot programmer who understands the merits of static typing and composition over inheritance, if pointers and mutexes are second nature, if optimizing memory allocations and CPU caches are an old hat, you will find plenty of books and resources that ramp up quickly and cover advanced topics more thoroughly."

Have you looked at http://www.gopl.io/ ?

Nathan.

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "golang-nuts" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/golang-nuts/_-35shjZqUU/unsubscribe.

To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to golang-nuts+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[matthe...@gmail.com]

I may have been pushing my own agenda more than what the Go project is actually about with this:

Perhaps something like “Go is designed for programming modern computers and computer systems in English” would be more accurate?

This 2012 talk does indicate that Go is about Google-style network application programming: https://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article

Matt