Preface

Web applications have been around in one form or another since the beginning of the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s. They started by only delivering static web pages but soon escalated and evolved into a dizzying variety of dynamic systems delivering data and functions. My own journey in developing applications for the web started around the same time, in the mid-1990s, and I eventually spent the larger part of my professional career designing, developing, and managing teams in developing large-scale web applications. Over the same period of time, I have written web applications in numerous programming languages and using various frameworks including Java, Ruby, Node.js, PHP, Perl, Elixir, and even Smalltalk.

I stumbled on Go a few years ago, and what worked very well for me is the simplicity and refreshing directness of the language. I was even more impressed when I realized that I could quickly write complete web applications (and services) that are fast and scalable with only the Go standard libraries. The code is direct, easy to understand, and can be quickly and easily compiled into a single deployable binary file. I no longer need to throw in application servers to scale or to make my web application production-capable. Needless to say, all of these elements made Go my new favorite language for writing web applications.