WEEK 3: ENTRY 3

 Today at my internship, I was tasked with learning Go programming language. My team uses Go programming to develop their application because of its great features and flexibility. Some of the reasons why the team uses Go are the language's fast startup time, low runtime overhead and ability to run without a virtual machine. In addition, Go can also be used for concurrent programming - a strategy to execute multiple tasks at one time. These are some of the reasons that my manager mentioned that are very prominent and vital as to why they are using Go. So what did I learn about Go before today? Well, prior to today, I read an article about how easy Go is, especially if one had programming skills with Java, C++, and Python. I am only fluent in Python and a little skill in C++. I wish I took some time prior to my internship to learn the Go programming language because if I did, the transition and start of my internship would have been easier.  I procrastinated on learning the Go because I was busy with last semester’s workload. I thought adding the task of learning a new programming language would have added to my stressful semester. 


Unlike Python, I learned that Go is very sensitive with great programming etiquette, especially with variable declaration. I remember so many times when I declared a variable or imported a package and never used them in my python code, yet my python program would still run. Well, I was struck by how much Go dislikes that. With Go, whenever you import a package or declare a variable without using it, the program would not run. Thus, my program failed several times today because I thought importing all the packages would save me time before I used them. However, with Go it must be used once declared. It does not allow you to wait and use it later. 


Besides, I was amazed by how much different the Go syntax is from Python. My manager was right when he said Go is a combination of C++ and Python into one. The Go syntax uses semicolon, curly brackets in its functions and loops. For me, this was hard for me to grasp at first. Thus, I spent the rest of my day today watching a Youtube tutorial on the Go programming language. I must say that I am developing a greater understanding of the syntax and loops structure. I can now write simple print statements and loops using the Go language. But, I am still struggling grasping the idea of methods and interfaces in Go. Therefore, I intend to spend my weekend finishing up the Go Tour tutorial, while also watching more videos on methods and interfaces. In the future, I will make sure that I learn the new tool or programming language before starting an internship or project because it seems I will have to wait until next week to dig my hands and start coding my project.

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