How I Started Learning Go (Golang): A Developer's Journey into Simplicity and Speed

"Never memorize something that you can look up"

May 01, 2025

Introduction

As someone who has dabbled in various languages—Python for data projects, JavaScript for web apps, even some Java during college—I always found myself appreciating languages that get out of your way and let you build fast. That’s what made Go (or Golang) stand out.

In this post, I want to share how I started learning Go, what resources helped me, and why I believe Go is a language every developer should at least explore.

Why Go?

Before I even wrote my first fmt.Println("Hello, World!"), Go appealed to me for a few reasons:

Simplicity – The syntax is minimal and consistent.
Speed – Both in terms of execution and compilation.
Concurrency – Goroutines and channels make concurrent programming far more approachable.
Strong standard library – Everything from HTTP servers to JSON parsing is built in.

Go seemed like a language where I could build real-world tools, especially CLI apps and APIs, without a ton of boilerplate.

My Learning Journey

1. Getting Started

I started by installing Go from the official website and following the Tour of Go. It was the perfect intro—hands-on and interactive. I got to try the language right in the browser, which removed a lot of setup friction.

2. Resources That Helped

Here are a few things that accelerated my learning:

Go by Example: Simple, clear snippets that demonstrate how to use key Go concepts.
YouTube Channels: I watched tutorials by developers like JustForFunc and The Net Ninja, which helped solidify my understanding.
Mini Projects: I built a few small tools like a file renamer, a web scraper, and eventually a REST API.
Go Docs: Surprisingly readable and helpful! I kept them open constantly.

3. Building Real Projects

Once I got comfortable with basic syntax, I started building things:

CLI Tool for File Cleanup – Using os and filepath packages.
JSON-based API – Using net/http to serve a small web service.
Concurrent Image Downloader – This one made me appreciate Goroutines.

The satisfaction of seeing how fast and efficient these apps ran was what really cemented my interest in Go.

What I Love About Go

Static typing with fast feedback: Compiler errors are your friend here.
Cross-compilation: You can build binaries for any platform with a simple command.
Clean code culture: The built-in gofmt ensures consistency across projects.
Massive community support: Especially around web dev, microservices, and DevOps tools.

What Was Challenging

Error handling in Go is verbose. At first, I missed Python’s try-except blocks.
Dependency management was confusing before I understood go mod.
No generics was a limitation until Go 1.18 introduced them. (Now it’s much better.)

But none of these were deal-breakers. In fact, some of them pushed me to write clearer and more maintainable code.

Final Thoughts: Why You Should Try Go

If you’re a developer looking to expand your toolkit, Go is a language worth picking up. It’s simple to learn, fun to use, and incredibly efficient for building APIs, microservices, and backend tools.

Whether you're into system-level programming, cloud-native development, or just building fast command-line apps, Go offers a solid, scalable, and joyful developer experience.

What’s Next?

I plan to dive deeper into:

Writing tests in Go using testing
Exploring frameworks like Gin or Echo
Building a real-world microservice architecture

If you're on the same path or curious about Go, let’s connect!