Where should a programmer with NO static/compiled language exp start learning Go?

Question

I'm an experienced software developer, but I've only worked in dynamic languages (primarily Python, PHP in the past, JavaScript, and a little Ruby). Last night, I found myself reading through the tour on the Go website's tour when I realized that the language (syntax, libraries, etc.) would probably be fairly easy to learn, but my lack of knowledge about static/compiled languages would bar me from easy entry. It's not that I don't understand the core concepts of a static language, namely that function argument/variable/return types are static and that a program must be compiled before use. It's more that I don't know where to begin after writing a program. For instance, if I wrote a web application using the Revel framework, it would handle these steps for me (according to the website). Is that pretty typical of frameworks for static languages. Am I worrying too much about a small part of the process that will be quick to learn, or are the (as I call them) formalities of using a static language pretty cumbersome?

Answer 1

As other suggested, any tutorial on Go would work, and you probably worry too much about the dynamic -> static switch. Statically typed languages can be a bit cumbersome sometimes if you come from dynamic typing world, but you'll quickly get used to your compiler yelling at you when types are not correct, and quickly fix it. Eventually, you'll start double guessing it and write (mostly) type-correct code.

Rob Pike noticed that people coming to Go where coming mainly from dynamic languages, which means this cannot be all that hard to do the switch.

There are a lot of tutorials all over the internet titled "Go for ", such as "Go for Rubyists", "Go for Pythonistas" which can help you map your existing knowledge to Go concepts. But as other underlined, the best (only ?) way of properly learning go is to take a tutorial and dive in ! For the books, the standard Effective Go or the very good Programming in Go are very good reads, no matter your background.

Answer 2

Well obviously practice makes perfect, and reading through the extensive documentation. I also find this book really nice Go-lang book, it has some exercises at the end of the chapters which is nice.

Answer 3

Just get a basic tutorial for the language you want and follow it. You will soon pick up how to structure the program. You can then apply your current knowledge of programming to make it do what you want.