The Ultimate Guide to Downloading Go 1.20.1 and Setting Up Your Environment
Introduction
Go is a programming language that is open source and designed to make programmers more productive. It was created at Google in 2009 by Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson, who wanted a language that was fast, simple, reliable, and scalable. Some of the key features of Go include:
Support for environment adopting patterns similar to dynamic languages
Fast compilation time
Inbuilt concurrency support: lightweight processes (via goroutines), channels, select statement
Simplicity
Powerful standard library
Testing support
Powerful compiler
Go binaries
Go has been used by many organizations in every industry to power their software and services. Some examples of famous projects that use Go are Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Hugo, and gRPC. You can find more stories of companies using Go .
download go 1.20.1
Download and install Go
To compile and run a simple program in Go, you need to download and install the latest version of Go from the . The installation process is different for different operating systems. Here are the steps for Linux, Mac, and Windows:
Linux
Remove any previous Go installation by deleting the /usr/local/go folder (if it exists), then extract the archive you just downloaded into /usr/local, creating a fresh Go tree in /usr/local/go:$ rm -rf /usr/local/go && tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.20.4.linux-amd64.tar.gz(You may need to run the command as root or through sudo).
Add /usr/local/go/bin to the PATH environment variable. You can do this by adding the following line to your $HOME/.profile or /etc/profile (for a system-wide installation):export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/binNote: Changes made to a profile file may not apply until the next time you log into your computer. To apply the changes immediately, just run the shell commands directly or execute them from the profile using a command such as source $HOME/.profile.
Verify that you've installed Go by opening a command prompt and typing the following command:$ go versionConfirm that the command prints the installed version of Go.
Mac
Open the package file you downloaded and follow the prompts to install Go.The package installs the Go distribution in /usr/local/go. The package should put the /usr/local/go/bin directory in your PATH environment variable. You may need to restart any open Terminal sessions for the change to take effect.
Verify that you've installed Go by opening a terminal and typing the following command:$ go versionConfirm that the command prints the installed version of Go.
Windows
Open the MSI file you downloaded and follow the prompts to install Go.The installer should put the C:\Go\bin directory in your PATH environment variable. You may need to restart any open command prompts for the change to take effect.
Verify that you've installed Go by opening a command prompt and typing the following command:C:\> go versionConfirm that the command prints the installed version of Go.
Write some code in Go
Now that you have Go installed, you can write some code in Go. Go programs are organized into packages, which are collections of source files that share a common namespace and a set of dependencies. A package can be executable or a library. An executable package must have a file called main.go that defines a function called main(), which is the entry point of the program. A library package can be imported by other packages to use its exported identifiers, such as types, variables, constants, and functions.
Hello, world!
Let's start with a simple program that prints "Hello, world!" to the standard output. Create a folder called hello and inside it create a file called main.go. Then write the following code in the file:
How to download and install go 1.20.1 on Windows
Download go 1.20.1 source code and build from scratch
Go 1.20.1 release notes and new features
Download go 1.20.1 for Linux and Mac OS
Go 1.20.1 installation instructions and troubleshooting
Download go 1.20.1 for FreeBSD, Linux ppc64le, and Linux s390x
Go 1.20.1 binary distributions and checksums
Download go 1.20.1 for ARM64 and x86-64 processors
Go 1.20.1 module mirror and checksum database
Download go 1.20.1 for web development and cloud computing
Go 1.20.1 documentation and tutorials
Download go 1.20.1 for data science and machine learning
Go 1.20.1 performance improvements and benchmarks
Download go 1.20.1 for mobile development and cross-platform apps
Go 1.20.1 compatibility and migration guide
Download go 1.20.4, the latest stable version of go
Go 1.20.4 vs go 1.20.3 vs go 1.20.2 vs go 1.20.1 comparison
Download go 2, the upcoming major version of go
Go 2 features and roadmap
Download go playground, an online tool to run go code
Go playground examples and tips
Download go tools, a collection of tools for working with go code
Go tools usage and best practices
Download go packages, a repository of reusable go code
Go packages overview and search
Download go vet, a tool to check the correctness of go code
Go vet errors and warnings
Download go fmt, a tool to format go code according to the official style guide
Go fmt options and flags
Download go test, a tool to run automated tests for go code
Go test coverage and reports
Download go mod, a tool to manage dependencies for go modules
Go mod commands and configuration
Download go run, a tool to compile and run go code without building an executable file
Go run arguments and environment variables
Download golang.org/x, a subrepository of experimental and deprecated packages for go
Golang.org/x packages list and status
Download gopls, a language server for go that provides IDE features such as code completion, diagnostics, formatting, etc.
Gopls installation and integration with editors
Download gopherjs, a compiler that transpiles go code to JavaScript code that can run in the browser
Gopherjs examples and limitations
Download gomobile, a tool that enables cross-platform mobile development with go
Gomobile bind and init commands
Download gophercises, a series of exercises that help you learn go by building real-world applications
Gophercises solutions and feedback
Download gotour, an interactive introduction to the go programming language
Gotour slides and exercises
package main import "fmt" func main() fmt.Println("Hello, world!")
The first line of the code declares the package name, which is main in this case. The second line imports the fmt package from the standard library, which provides formatted I/O functions. The third line defines the main() function, which prints "Hello, world!" using the fmt.Println() function.
To run the program, open a terminal or command prompt and navigate to the hello folder. Then type the following command:
$ go run main.go
You should see the output "Hello, world!" on your screen.
Call code in an external package
You can use code from other packages by importing them in your program. For example, you can use the package to generate random numbers. Let's modify our program to print a random number between 1 and 10 instead of "Hello, world!". Edit your main.go file and change it to:
package main import ( "fmt" "math/rand" "time" ) func main() // Seed the random number generator with the current time rand.Seed(time.Now().UnixNano()) // Generate a random number between 1 and 10 n := rand.Intn(10) + 1 // Print the number fmt.Println(n)
The first line of the code is unchanged, it still declares the package name as main. The second line imports three packages: . We use parentheses to group multiple imports into one statement. The third line defines the main() function, which does three things:
It calls the , which returns the current time in nanoseconds. This is necessary to initialize the random number generator with a different seed every time we run the program, otherwise we would get the same sequence of random numbers every time.
It calls the function with the argument 10, which returns a random integer between 0 and 9. We add 1 to this result to get a number between 1 and 10.
It calls the function with the argument n, which prints the number to the standard output.
To run the program, open a terminal or command prompt and navigate to the hello folder. Then type the same command as before:
$ go run main.go
You should see a random number between 1 and 10 on your screen. Try running the program multiple times and see how the output changes.
Write more code in Go
Now that you know how to write and run a simple program in Go, let's write some more code in Go. Go has many features and constructs that make it easy and fun to write code. Some of them are:
Data types: Go has basic data types such as numbers, strings, booleans, and arrays, as well as composite data types such