Go Tutorial · Go Basics · Lesson 1 of 30
Go Introduction
What Go is, why it's popular for back-end services and what a Go program looks like.
What is Go?
Go (often called Golang) is an open-source language created at Google in 2009. It's designed to be simple, fast and reliable for building software at scale:
- Compiled to a single native binary — easy to deploy, starts instantly.
- Statically typed with a small, readable syntax.
- Built-in concurrency with goroutines and channels.
- A strong standard library: HTTP servers, JSON, testing, crypto.
Go powers Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Prometheus and countless back-end APIs and command-line tools.
Hello, World!
package main
import "fmt"
func main() {
fmt.Println("Hello, World!")
}
Output
Hello, World!
Run this on your computer — see “Get Started” for setup.
Every Go program starts in package main with a func main(). Go examples on this site show the program and its output — copy any example into main.go and run it with go run main.go.
Test yourself
Which function is the entry point of a Go program?
init()main() in package mainstart()Main()
Show answer
Answer: main() in package main