My biggest complaint about that book in 2023, is that it’s missing modules. Anyone uttlerly new to Go will be confused by the advice in that book (and any other older book), when trying to set up their first Go project. I still gave it a great review, though!
I really want to buy a new edition of The Go Programming Language
Alan Donovan said somewhere (maybe the Go mailing list?) that they plan to do a second edition, but (as I recall) the update sounded fairly distant. That is, they wanted to update the book (for generics and lots of other reasons), but they weren’t working on it now, and they wouldn’t be doing it in the immediate future.
That said, I agree that despite all the specific ways it’s out of date, I would recommend it now anyhow. (Ironic given my advice about Learning Go, but I think that The Go Programming Language is in a very elite category of tech books: it’s worth buying regardless of the parts that are out of date. (There is a thread about that somewhere on Lobsters. I’ll look for the link later.)
For learning how to do web servers with Golang, I found Let’s Go and Let’s Go Further by Alex Edwards both very good. The way he iteratively adds to programs, and inline-comments the changed parts with change reasoning and background is what I found more unique in these books.
I learned Go by writing a book about it, but I ended up with a book listing all of the ways that Go was badly designed, which turned out not to be what the market wanted.
I agree that this is a great book about Go, but if you don’t own a copy, it’s probably better to wait and buy the second edition. As @jhall explains in his review, Learning Go was released in 2021, and the book was out of date almost immediately because of generics. Yes, there is a free online extra chapter about generics, but that doesn’t account for recent updates as of Go 1.20. (@jhall links to O’Reilly’s site for the update chapter, but there’s a PDF online too.)
In any case, the second edition is slated for March of 2024. In the spirit of the MacRumors buying guide, I’d say you definitely want to wait to buy the newer one and not immediately regret an out-of-date edition.
I’m quite looking forward to the second edition. But I would not want to advise anyone to wait a year to learn Go, if they have the time and apetite to learn the language now. Just know that Go changes quickly, and practically any book will be outdated almost immediately.
I wouldn’t be so quick to dissuade people from buying a book on Go just because it lacks a section on generics. They can hit the ground running in Go without using generics and it’s an easy gap to fill with online resources.
Fair enough. It’s not just missing generics though. I mentioned generics because of the unfortunate timing of the first edition. There have been three releases since the book came out (1.18, 1.19, and 1.20), and I’m assuming that the goal of the second edition is to catch the book up significantly.
As @jhall said in his reply to my comment, “practically any book will be outdated almost immediately.” There’s a lot truth to that for programming books. But I also know that I get frustrated when I buy a book and it is immediately (or in this case, already) out of date. People should make their own decisions, but I wanted to stress that a new edition is coming soon.
So what I’m seeing from the comments is that the OP has identified an un-fulfilled niche.
I’m with you @jhall, I much prefer learning from a book, but until then, have you considered the Golang Tour It’s an online tutorial but it’s very up to date with all the natest features as near as I can tell.
(Go experts please dive in and tell me if I’m wrong about that. I’m working through it myself and would love independent verification)
I really want to buy a new edition of The Go Programming Language with generics. :-) It’s probably still the best even without them.
My biggest complaint about that book in 2023, is that it’s missing modules. Anyone uttlerly new to Go will be confused by the advice in that book (and any other older book), when trying to set up their first Go project. I still gave it a great review, though!
https://boldlygo.tech/posts/2023-02-10-review-go-programming-language/
Alan Donovan said somewhere (maybe the Go mailing list?) that they plan to do a second edition, but (as I recall) the update sounded fairly distant. That is, they wanted to update the book (for generics and lots of other reasons), but they weren’t working on it now, and they wouldn’t be doing it in the immediate future.
That said, I agree that despite all the specific ways it’s out of date, I would recommend it now anyhow. (Ironic given my advice about Learning Go, but I think that The Go Programming Language is in a very elite category of tech books: it’s worth buying regardless of the parts that are out of date. (There is a thread about that somewhere on Lobsters. I’ll look for the link later.)
For learning how to do web servers with Golang, I found Let’s Go and Let’s Go Further by Alex Edwards both very good. The way he iteratively adds to programs, and inline-comments the changed parts with change reasoning and background is what I found more unique in these books.
I second this. I’m reading Let’s Go now, and so far it’s great.
Has anyone tried Writing an Interpreter in Go or Writing a Compiler in Go by Thorsten Bell? They look interesting, but I’d be curious to hear more about them.
I learned Go by writing a book about it, but I ended up with a book listing all of the ways that Go was badly designed, which turned out not to be what the market wanted.
Where could one find that book?
The overall top pick is Jon Bodner’s Learning Go, 1st edition (more on editions in a minute).
I agree that this is a great book about Go, but if you don’t own a copy, it’s probably better to wait and buy the second edition. As @jhall explains in his review, Learning Go was released in 2021, and the book was out of date almost immediately because of generics. Yes, there is a free online extra chapter about generics, but that doesn’t account for recent updates as of Go 1.20. (@jhall links to O’Reilly’s site for the update chapter, but there’s a PDF online too.)
In any case, the second edition is slated for March of 2024. In the spirit of the MacRumors buying guide, I’d say you definitely want to wait to buy the newer one and not immediately regret an out-of-date edition.
I’m quite looking forward to the second edition. But I would not want to advise anyone to wait a year to learn Go, if they have the time and apetite to learn the language now. Just know that Go changes quickly, and practically any book will be outdated almost immediately.
I wouldn’t be so quick to dissuade people from buying a book on Go just because it lacks a section on generics. They can hit the ground running in Go without using generics and it’s an easy gap to fill with online resources.
Fair enough. It’s not just missing generics though. I mentioned generics because of the unfortunate timing of the first edition. There have been three releases since the book came out (1.18, 1.19, and 1.20), and I’m assuming that the goal of the second edition is to catch the book up significantly.
As @jhall said in his reply to my comment, “practically any book will be outdated almost immediately.” There’s a lot truth to that for programming books. But I also know that I get frustrated when I buy a book and it is immediately (or in this case, already) out of date. People should make their own decisions, but I wanted to stress that a new edition is coming soon.
So what I’m seeing from the comments is that the OP has identified an un-fulfilled niche.
I’m with you @jhall, I much prefer learning from a book, but until then, have you considered the Golang Tour It’s an online tutorial but it’s very up to date with all the natest features as near as I can tell.
(Go experts please dive in and tell me if I’m wrong about that. I’m working through it myself and would love independent verification)
The Tour of Go is a great intro to the language, but not nearly the depth needed to really start using the language seriously.