Recent Articles

Using MVC to Structure Go Web Applications

MVC is a well-known way to structure web applications, but it is often shunned in Go. In this article we explore how MVC can be effectively implement in Go as well as how to avoid all of the issues that many people associate with MVC.

Flat Application Structure in Go

Rather than spending time trying to figure out how to break code into packages, an app with a flat structure would just place all of the go files in a single package. This sounds kinda crazy, but can actually be a great facilitator of learning and letting code evolve into a better final state.

Why Cant We Settle on a Single Application Structure in Go

Getting started in Go can be hard. The language itself is pretty easy to pick up, but figuring out how to structure your application can become overwhelming early on. At least it was a big time sink for me coming from a Ruby on Rails background where all of those early decisions were made for me. As I progressed I kept wondering why I had to make all of these decisions myself.

TDD is Not for Me

Test driven development is thought of as a practice every developer should adhere to, yet many of us privately struggle to be productive using TDD. In this article we explore some of the reasons why TDD isn't always a great choice and can hinder your productivity

Testing is Not for Beginners

Everyone keeps saying you should be testing, but are they right? In this article we discuss the downsides to trying to learn testing too early and how it can negatively affect your ability to learn to code.

When nil Isn't Equal to nil

It is easy to get confused by when and why different variants of nil will be equal and when they won't be in Go. In this article we explore why this happens so that you know what to expect when writing your code.

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6 Tips for Using Strings in Go

Learn how to perform common operations with strings in Go. This article discusses how to write multiline strings, concatenate strings efficiently, convert various data types into strings, checking for prefixes, and converting strings to byte slices.

Using Functions Inside Go Templates

Go's template package provides many useful built-in functions. Learn to use a few of the more common ones, as well as how to add custom fucntions to your templates so that you can add any functionality you need.

Connecting to a PostgreSQL database with Go's database/sql package

This tutorial explains how to connect to a Postgres DB using the database/sql and lib/pq packages. It also covers potential errors and solutions.

Creating Random Strings in Go

A tutorial explaining how to create a custom rand package with functions for creating random strings of varying length with custom of preset character sets.

Inserting records into a PostgreSQL database with Go's database/sql package

Learn to insert new records into a Postgres database using Go's database/sql package, along with how to get the resulting ID of newly created records.

How to use slice capacity and length in Go

Learn about the difference between capacity and length and how to properly utilize them to make your Go code faster, cleaner, and memory efficient.

Using PostgreSQL with Go

PostgreSQL is an open source relational database system that has been around for well over a decade and has proven to be a great all around storage choice when developing a web application.

In this series we are going to walk through everything from first installing PostgreSQL 9.5 all the way to using it with a Go application. While this post will cover all of the basics required to get started using SQL with Golang, it is not a full course on SQL. It is instead intended to guide you by giving you enough information to be productive, while not overloading you with details that can be learned as you progress.

In this series we will cover topics like:

Installing PostgreSQL on various operating systems (Ubuntu Linux, Mac OS, etc)
Interacting with a PostgreSQL database using raw SQL. This includes querying, inserting, updating, and deleting records.
Interacting with a PostgreSQL database using the database/sql package provided by Go's standard library. Again, this includes querying, inserting, updating, and deleting records.
Using ORMs and other third party librarys to interact with SQL databases

It's SQL Time

Let's Learn Algorithms

This series is no longer being updated. Instead, check out the course I created based on it - Algorithms with Go

Algorithms are a core component in a computer science education, and when taught properly they can help a developer improve his or her skills massively. In this series we will work to both understand how common computer algorithms work, as well as how to properly code each of them in Go.

By coding each algorithm as we learn it, you will develop the skills necessary to translate a conceptual idea into correct and efficient code. While many developers will know how to solve a problem set before them, oftentimes bugs and issues can stem from minor mistakes that algorithm practice can help remedy.

In addition to coding each algorithm we will also discuss how it works as well as the efficiency of each algorithm. That is, we will discuss how fast or slow the code will be based on the size of the input. This is important because in many real world situations you can opt for simpler - but slower - code if you know your inputs won't be too large. Alternatively, you could determine that the simpler solution won't work for your inputs and know that you will need to spend some extra time on a more efficient algorithm.

If you are relatively new to programmer, or simply don't have a formal computer science education, I invite you to check out these articles. You won't be disappointed!

Let's Learn Algorithms

Articles and Tutorials by

Jon Calhoun

Follow @joncalhoun

Jon Calhoun is a full stack web developer who teaches about Go, web development, algorithms, and anything programming. If you haven't already, you should totally check out his Go courses.

Previously, Jon worked at several statups including co-founding EasyPost, a shipping API used by several fortune 500 companies. Prior to that Jon worked at Google, competed at world finals in programming competitions, and has been programming since he was a child.

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