Getting started with Go on Windows

I’m giving this Go-lang thing a whirl, turns out it’s dead easy to set up on Windows.

1. First download and install Git if you don’t have it already - when using Go you’ll user a lot of open source!

2. Next download and install the latest 64-bit Go MSI distributable from https://golang.org/dl. Run that hit next, next, next and let it set up all the defaults.

3. Once that’s done open up the CMD and type go version if everything is running you should get something like go version go1.6.2 windows/amd64 back.

Great - now Go is installed!

But we’re not quite done yet - Go developers normally keep all their Go code in a single workspace.

The GOPATH environment variable specifies the location of this workspace. The workspace should contain 3 folders bin, pkg and src.

4. Set up your workspace, I created my workspace at C:\Development\Go

5. Create the GOPATH variable in your Environment settings: System, Advanced system settings, Environment Variables, New…. Then add the variable GOPATH with the value of your workspace path.

Now you’ve installed Go and have your workspace set up - you’re practically good to go.

Now what?

Have some fun, get started here: https://golang.org/doc/code.html