How to Write Your First Go Program

Go, also known as Golang, is a statically typed, compiled programming language designed for simplicity and high performance. Writing your first Go program is an exciting step in learning this powerful language. This tutorial will guide you through the steps of creating and running your first Go program.

1. Setting Up Your Environment

Before you start writing Go programs, ensure that you have installed Go on your system. You can check if Go is installed by running:

go version

If it’s not installed, refer to our guide on how to install Go.

2. Creating a Workspace

Create a directory for your Go workspace. This is where all your Go projects will reside. Open your terminal and run:

mkdir -p ~/go/src/hello
cd ~/go/src/hello

This creates a directory called hello where we’ll write our first program.

3. Writing Your First Go Program

Create a new file named main.go:

nano main.go

Insert the following code into main.go:

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    fmt.Println("Hello, World!")
}

This code defines a simple Go program that prints Hello, World! to the console.

4. Running Your Go Program

To run your program, make sure you are in the same directory as main.go and execute:

go run main.go

The output should display:

Hello, World!

5. Compiling Your Go Program

If you want to compile your Go program into an executable, use:

go build main.go

This command will create an executable named hello in the same directory. To run the compiled program, use:

./hello

Running the executable should give the same output:

Hello, World!

6. Conclusion

By following this tutorial, you have successfully written and run your first Go program. The Hello, World! application is a great starting point to learn how Go works. Continue to explore the features of Go, including its rich standard library, to enhance your programming skills!

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Dorian Kane

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