Go Tutorial from Zero to Back-end Developer

Here’s a structured list of topics for the tutorial, following a systematic progression similar to an academic book.

This structure aims to cover the foundational to advanced topics in Go, systematically progressing from beginner-level syntax to complex systems programming concepts.

Golang Tutorial: From Zero to Hero

1. Introduction in Go

1.1 History and Design Philosophy of Go
1.2 Features and Benefits of Go
1.3 Installing and Setting Up Go Environment
1.4 First Program: Hello World
1.5 The Go Toolchain and Workspace Structure

2. Basic Syntax and Constructs

2.1 Variables and Constants
2.2 Basic Data Types (integers, floats, booleans, strings)
2.3 Type Inference
2.4 Comments and Code Documentation
2.5 Packages and Importing Libraries
2.6 Functions and Defer Statement
2.7 Basic Input/Output (fmt package)

3. Control Flow

3.1 Conditional Statements (if-else)
3.2 Switch Statements
3.3 Loops: For (Go’s only loop construct)
3.4 Break and Continue Statements

4. Data Structures in Go

4.1 Arrays
4.2 Slices (Dynamic Arrays)
4.3 Maps (Dictionaries)
4.4 Structs (Composite Data Types)
4.5 Pointers in Go (Basics and Use Cases)

5. Functions and Advanced Usage

5.1 Function Parameters and Return Values
5.2 Variadic Functions
5.3 Anonymous Functions and Closures
5.4 Higher-order Functions (passing functions as arguments)
5.5 Recursion in Go

6. Error Handling

6.1 The Go Philosophy of Error Handling
6.2 Errors Package
6.3 Custom Error Types
6.4 Panic, Recover, and Defer

7. Go Concurrency Model

7.1 Understanding Go Routines
7.2 Synchronization with WaitGroups
7.3 Channels: Basic Concepts
7.4 Buffered vs Unbuffered Channels
7.5 Select Statement for Channel Multiplexing
7.6 Best Practices for Concurrency in Go

8. Object-Oriented Programming in Go

8.1 Structs and Methods (Encapsulation in Go)
8.2 Go’s Interface Type (Polymorphism)
8.3 Composition over Inheritance in Go
8.4 Empty Interfaces and Type Assertions
8.5 Embedding (a unique Go feature)

9. Advanced Go Features

9.1 Reflection in Go
9.2 Generics (since Go 1.18)
9.3 Custom Data Structures
9.4 Implementing Interfaces

10. File Handling and I/O

10.1 Working with Files (os package)
10.2 Reading and Writing Files
10.3 Handling File Paths and Directories
10.4 JSON Encoding and Decoding (encoding/json package)
10.5 Working with CSV Files

11. Testing in Go

11.1 Writing Unit Tests
11.2 The Testing Package
11.3 Benchmarking Code
11.4 Table-Driven Tests
11.5 Code Coverage in Go

12. Web Development with Go

12.1 Introduction to net/http Package
12.2 Building a Basic Web Server
12.3 Handling HTTP Requests and Responses
12.4 Routing and Middleware
12.5 Working with Templates
12.6 RESTful APIs with Go

13. Database Access

13.1 Connecting to Databases (database/sql package)
13.2 Performing CRUD Operations
13.3 Using GORM (Go ORM Library)
13.4 Managing Transactions
13.5 Handling Migrations

14. Memory Management and Performance Optimization

14.1 Understanding Go’s Garbage Collector
14.2 Profiling Go Applications (pprof package)
14.3 Writing Efficient Go Code
14.4 Memory Leaks and How to Avoid Them
14.5 Optimization Techniques (Avoiding allocations, improving CPU utilization)

15. Deploying Go Applications

15.1 Compiling and Building Go Applications
15.2 Cross-compiling Go for Different Platforms
15.3 Creating Docker Containers for Go Applications
15.4 Deployment Strategies (CI/CD, Cloud Platforms)

16. Packages and Modules

16.1 Creating and Using Custom Packages
16.2 Managing Dependencies with Go Modules
16.3 Versioning and Semantic Import Paths
16.4 Publishing a Package (Go Proxy and the Go Module Ecosystem)

17. Security in Go Applications

17.1 Secure Coding Practices in Go
17.2 Working with TLS/SSL
17.3 JWT Authentication
17.4 Handling Sensitive Data (Encryption, Hashing)
17.5 Go’s Cryptography Packages

18. Go in Cloud Computing

18.1 Building Scalable Cloud-Native Applications
18.2 Go and Kubernetes
18.3 Working with AWS, GCP, and Azure SDKs in Go
18.4 Microservices with Go
18.5 Service Discovery and Load Balancing

19. Go Tools and Ecosystem

19.1 Go’s Standard Library Overview
19.2 Dependency Management Tools
19.3 Linting and Formatting (gofmt, golint)
19.4 Static Analysis Tools (staticcheck, gosimple)
19.5 Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) for Go

20. Best Practices and Advanced Patterns

20.1 Idiomatic Go (Go's Best Practices)
20.2 Error Handling Best Practices
20.3 Effective Concurrency Patterns
20.4 Architectural Patterns (Hexagonal, Clean Architecture in Go)
20.5 Writing Readable and Maintainable Code

21. Case Studies and Projects

21.1 Building a CLI Application
21.2 Building a RESTful API
21.3 Real-Time Web Application using WebSockets
21.4 Implementing a Distributed System (basic concepts)
21.5 Final Capstone Project: Full-stack Application with Go