Posted on Nov 5, 2019

How to get started with Golang and Visual Studio Online

Today I decided I wanted to write something in go using Microsoft's new Visual Studio Online. I won't be going over how to setup this up, because Azure can be a pain in the rear and because it deserves it's own article.

To get started, open up the environment you want to use.

Step One: Installation

First, we are going to download the latest version of Go:

vsonline:~/workspace$ wget https://dl.google.com/go/go1.13.4.linux-amd64.tar.gz

Once you have that downloaded, go ahead and extract it:

vsonline:~/workspace$ tar -xvf go1.13.4.linux-amd64.tar.gz

Now that you have extracted the go folder, we are going to move it to /usr/local

vsonline:~/workspace$ sudo mv go /usr/local

Step Two: Setup `GOROOT` and `GOPATH`

We are going to two create two new environment variables, and then modify another.

In your terminal, enter the following:

vsonline:~/workspace$ vim ~/.bashrc

This will open up your bash profile in a command-line editor called Vim. For those who don't know how to use vim, or are scared of it, don't worry. I will guide you keypress by keypress.

Vim Steps:

hold Shift + G and release
press o
press enter (you are now in editing mode) add the following lines where your cursor is:

export GOROOT=/usr/local/go export GOPATH=$HOME/workspace export PATH=$GOROOT/bin:$GOPATH/bin:$PATH

press Esc(Escape)
hold Shift and double tap the Z key

You have successfully escaped Vim, and saved your file. You should now be back at your terminal prompt.

Enter the following command:

vsonline:~/workspace$ source ~/.profile

Vous voilà!

Step Three: Make sure it works

The last step, is to make sure everything we did took hold.

vsonline:~/workspace$ go version go version go1.13.4 linux/amd64 vsonline:~/workspace$ go env GO111MODULE="" GOARCH="amd64" GOBIN="" GOCACHE="/home/vsonline/.cache/go-build" GOENV="/home/vsonline/.config/go/env" GOEXE="" GOFLAGS="" GOHOSTARCH="amd64" GOHOSTOS="linux" GONOPROXY="" GONOSUMDB="" GOOS="linux" GOPATH="/home/vsonline/workspace" GOPRIVATE="" GOPROXY="https://proxy.golang.org,direct" GOROOT="/usr/local/go" GOSUMDB="sum.golang.org" GOTMPDIR="" GOTOOLDIR="/usr/local/go/pkg/tool/linux_amd64" GCCGO="gccgo" AR="ar" CC="gcc" CXX="g++" CGO_ENABLED="1" GOMOD="" CGO_CFLAGS="-g -O2" CGO_CPPFLAGS="" CGO_CXXFLAGS="-g -O2" CGO_FFLAGS="-g -O2" CGO_LDFLAGS="-g -O2" PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config" GOGCCFLAGS="-fPIC -m64 -pthread -fmessage-length=0 -fdebug-prefix-map=/tmp/go-build921856996=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches"