Setting Up and Hello World

This lesson walks you through installing Go, setting up your workspace, creating your first module, and writing, building, and running your first Go program.

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Installing Go

Download and Install

Go can be installed from go.dev/dl. Downloads are available for all major platforms:

Platform	Installation Method
macOS	.pkg installer or brew install go
Windows	.msi installer or choco install golang
Linux	Extract the tarball to /usr/local

Verify the Installation

After installing, open a terminal and run:

go version

You should see output like:

go version go1.22.0 linux/amd64

Key Environment Variables

go env GOPATH    # Where Go stores downloaded modules (~/ go by default)
go env GOROOT    # Where Go itself is installed
go env GOOS      # Target operating system
go env GOARCH    # Target architecture

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Your First Module

Go uses modules to manage dependencies. Every Go project starts with a module.

Create a Project Directory

mkdir hello
cd hello

Initialise the Module

go mod init example.com/hello

This creates a go.mod file: