Spring 2019 Golang Self-Learning

As a web developer in C# and .NET ecosystem for seven years, I decided to learn Golang after I was introduced the Chang Sausheong’s book “Go Web Programming”.

Objectives

Learning a new language other than C#, especially a language which is not in .NET, gives me a new perspective on understanding web development. With powerful framework like ASP .NET Core, it’s easy for developers who build their web applications do not understand why the frameworks do things in certain ways and trade-offs in the frameworks.

ASP .NET Core makes developers’ life easier with Convention over Configuration concept. As long as we know the conventions of where everything is located and you place each component into its correct location, we can easily build a web application. However, this also hide too much details from us and eventually makes us hard to master web development. Hence, learning Golang helps me to gain a new perspective in understanding web development.

When I am working with ASP .NET Core, I normally deal with MS SQL Server or Azure SQL (which is cloud-based MS SQL Server). In the Golang web development, I switch to use PostgreSQL, which is also available on Microsoft Azure.

Contents

During the long holiday in Chinese New Year, I spent my time in reading the book and online resources regarding Golang web programming. With the new opening of library beside my workplace, I also get to spend time there after work to do some Golang coding.

After one to two months of self-learning, I managed to compile some notes about what I’ve learnt in this Spring. The following is a list of nine topics that I learned in the early-stage of my Golang journey.

1. Getting Started: Connecting Golang Console App with Azure PostgresSQL Database;
2. Getting Started: Making It a Golang Web Application;
3. Deploy Golang App to Azure Web Apps with CI/CD on DevOps;
4. Monitoring Golang Web App with Application Insights;
5. RESTful Web Service in Golang and Front-end Served with VueJS;
6. Authenticating Users in Golang Web App;
7. Unit Testing with Golang;
8. Containerize Golang Code and Deploy to Azure Web App;
9. Leveraging Golang Concurrency in Web App Development.

Learning After Work

I’m working in Haulio, a startup incubated by PSA. Since it’s a startup and I am the CTO, I have no choice but to stay late in office most of the time, especially the period when we rushed for the launch of our mobile application in end of February.

Hence, whenever I have time, I will spend it on doing some Golang research and coding. Sometimes, however, I am just too tired and I would not write anything even though it’s weekend. Hence, I end up finishing all the nine topics only in mid of March.

I’m also very fortunate to have to share what I have learned with engineers in Azure Community Singapore. It turns out that many of them are using Golang too. Hence, that also gives me a great opportunity to learn from those experienced Golang developers. =)

Again, I am not that hardworking to work on personal projects every day. Sometimes, I will accompany my Mom at home. Sometimes I will have dinner with friends. Sometimes, I will travel to overseas (I am writing this in Japan). Sometimes, I will also play computer games or simply just sleep at home. So ya, this self-learning project takes a longer time to complete.

Working on personal projects after work is stressful also. Yup, so the project involved in this self-learning is about creating a YouTube Re-Player to loop my favourite YouTube music to calm myself down. =P