Getting Started with Go Basics

Welcome to Go Basics — a collection of in-depth articles on Go internals and best practices.

What this site covers

Each article dives deep into a specific Go topic — from goroutine scheduling to GC internals — with interactive code examples you can run right in the browser.

Interactive Go Code

Every article includes runnable Go code powered by Codapi. Click Run to execute:

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
	fmt.Println("Hello from Go Basics!")
}

Goroutine Scheduling Overview

Go uses a work-stealing scheduler built around three core abstractions:

• G (Goroutine): a lightweight thread managed by the Go runtime
• M (Machine): an OS thread
• P (Processor): a logical processor that mediates between G and M

note

GOMAXPROCS controls the number of Ps, not the number of OS threads.

Value vs Pointer Receivers

Value Receiver

package main

import "fmt"

type Point struct {
	X, Y int
}

func (p Point) Translate(dx, dy int) Point {
	return Point{p.X + dx, p.Y + dy}
}

func main() {
	p := Point{1, 2}
	p2 := p.Translate(3, 4)
	fmt.Println(p, "→", p2)
}

Value receivers get a copy of the struct. The original is never modified.

Pointer Receiver

package main

import "fmt"

type Point struct {
	X, Y int
}

func (p *Point) Translate(dx, dy int) {
	p.X += dx
	p.Y += dy
}

func main() {
	p := Point{1, 2}
	p.Translate(3, 4)
	fmt.Println(p)
}

Pointer receivers modify the original struct in place.

Mixing receiver types

If any method on a type uses a pointer receiver, consider using pointer receivers for all methods on that type. Mixing can lead to subtle bugs with interface satisfaction.

What's Next?

Explore the articles in the sidebar — each one covers a topic from the curated list of Go topics with the same depth and interactive examples shown here.