Welcome

Thanks for purchasing the MEAP for Go In Action, Second Edition! Go has come a long way since the first edition was published back in 2015, and it has never been a better time to be a Go programmer. Since Go In Action was published, Go has seen widespread adoption in the cloud, establishing itself as one of the most popular languages for backend software. Meanwhile, the ecosystem has continued to improve, with the addition of thousands of new libraries, tens of thousands of new developers and new features such as context, built-in fuzzing and, of course, the much-awaited generic programming provided by type parameters.

This new edition is more than just a couple new chapters to catch up the material. With the benefit of nearly 8 years of working with Go, we thought we would take the opportunity to not only introduce new language elements, but also to revisit the old material with the goal of laying better foundations for the new Go programmer, including answering some of the most important questions new users have, such as how to structure your Go projects and how to get the most out of Go’s error handling paradigm. We have tried to keep the best practices that have evolved in the language since the last edition in mind, and have tried to make sure that potentially tricky concepts are explained thoroughly and intuitively, so that you can get the most out of starting your Go journey with us!