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**David Valentine:** Well, I specifically at this point specialize in starting from scratch, so I have my course that is designed really to bring someone up from scratch. One thing I did find is that originally some people were finding some trouble with the technical aspects of it; they were having some trouble with GO... |
Once they achieve that though, what I find is that people are really functional within it, they get an understanding... One of the beautiful things that is unique about Go as well is that if people want, they can get into the Go code itself; it's there, it's in your work station. If you're interested in how println() w... |
\[25:48\] So I think it's really similar to other programming languages in the sense that the fundamentals are the same, but it has great syntax, it's really thoughtful, it's really built for concurrency, and I think it's a really effective language for beginners, because some of those obscure elements in earlier langu... |
**Ashley Willis:** In the beginning -- well, you know, until recently (Thanks, Go team!), GOPATH was a nightmare. Once you got through that hurdle, after you're ready to throw your computer, and then you build something, you're feeling better... But I think that the hurdle of setting up your GOPATH was such a nightmare... |
**David Valentine:** Oh, absolutely. And getting to be set out of the default was the most brilliant thing that could happen. |
**Jon Calhoun:** I think that's one of the reasons why you see PHP being so popular still to this day. And I still think one of the big reasons it was was because if you knew very little, you could find a free PHP server and just upload a file, or you FTP in, or something, and connect to it and change a file, and you w... |
That's one of the reasons why I love the Go Playground, because I'm glad they thought about -- like, we need some way for somebody to quickly and easily just write some code; yeah, it's limited to the standard library, and some stuff like that, but it's still a great learning tool for somebody who, like you said, could... |
**Carmen Andoh:** Yeah, this is a good thing that I kind of was wondering... Like, how much is setup a part of learning Go versus other languages? And you mentioned PHP and Java, and if it's different. What are some of the setup gotchas in addition, or you think are gonna be the gotchas, or the learning gotchas? And ma... |
**Ashley Willis:** Well, some of these showoffs are saying that GOPATH made perfect sense to them, so... Good job, guys! Good job. |
**Jon Calhoun:** I think the problem with it was it either made sense to you, or it made no sense to you. There was no middle ground. |
**Ashley Willis:** Yes. |
**David Valentine:** And it was also very platform-specific as well, right? Because at that point when you're hooking into environment variables, or whatever your platform is, you can get stuck in the details of your particular platform. |
**Jon Calhoun:** Yeah. Especially because a lot of beginners are coming from Windows, and setting environment variables has always seemed easier to me in Mac or Linux, whereas in Windows, trying to get somebody to go set that stuff up correctly was sometimes a pain. |
**Ashley Willis:** Super-pain. Me and Steve Francia (Hi, Steve!) used to teach workshops, and the first thing that we would do is "Raise your hand if you use a Windows machine. Great. You guys are now friends, because you're going to need to help each other during setup, because we cannot help you." |
**Carmen Andoh:** Yeah, taught them, and I have that material and I thought it was amazing... A CLI workshop, and I think it was for OSCON last year, or the year before. The slide deck is something like 300-some slides, and setup, Ashley, was like the first third of that. So I just wonder - is that the hump that we jus... |
**Ashley Willis:** It really was the first half of the workshop. Setup was difficult for a lot of people. There was a lot of going around and helping people get their machines set up. Once we got into building the app, things seemed to flow much easier... So yeah, setup was definitely a big issue. |
**Jon Calhoun:** \[30:11\] I think setup is also the biggest quitting point, too. |
**Carmen Andoh:** Yeah. |
**Jon Calhoun:** At some point during setup, if it stops working, you quit. But if you're writing code and you've got most things running, I think you're less likely to quit at that point. |
**Carmen Andoh:** And is this unique to Go? I wanna give a nod to any beginner out there, whether it's somebody who's already learned something else in terms of the programming language, or someone who's a complete beginner - is setup a quitting point for all languages, or is it a little bit more painful in Go? |
**Jon Calhoun:** I think it's all. I think every language has some barrier to entry, and once you get it, you're good, but up until that point it can be frustrating. |
**David Valentine:** I do think it also depends whether you're talking about an interpreted language or a compiled language as well, right? Because it is a little hard to compare Go to an interpreted language, the like of PHP perhaps, in the way that it's structured and some of those elements that it actually achieves ... |
One other element I think comes into play is once you have Go set up, what do you hook in after that? Is it an IDE? Do you have plans for an IDE? Because there's some really outstanding things you can do afterwards, and yeah, I show - just like everyone else does - how do you make a Hello, world program on the command ... |
So there's that initial setup, but then also -- ask anyone, they have their favorite, whether it's Atom, Sublime, Visual Studio Code... Everyone has their favorite tools to then add to whatever language they're programming in at that point. |
**Carmen Andoh:** And then what do you think about in terms of content or setup, in terms of audience competence? We have a comment here from Cory LaNou in the \#GoTimeFM Slack, who said that go install was the easiest that he's ever used... But again, it was geared towards me as an audience, so we're saying somebody w... |
**Ashley Willis:** Yeah, I do think... When people ask me what language they should start with, I usually say Python, because there's so much information out there, and I felt like setup was easier, for some reason. For Go, I feel like there's a lot of highly technical things out there, which is great, and then there a... |
For me, when I learn a new programming language - I am not ashamed by this, I don't care if you laugh - I buy children's books. I love kids' programming books. They are the greatest. There needs to be one for Go, yesterday. |
**Carmen Andoh:** Oh my god, yes! \[laughs\] Well, you know, there was this trend - it's probably about eight years old now; do you remember ELI5, Explain It Like I'm 5? |
**Ashley Willis:** Yes. |
**Carmen Andoh:** Those were great. We had someone in the chat earlier saying "Well, I need to learn the thing to get to the thing, and learn the thing before that thing", and it's just a recursive -- but I don't know this all the way down, so I'm hoping your Gentle Beginners' Course tackles exactly that. |
**David Valentine:** Well, I appreciate that, and I'll tell you, you're almost throwing the gauntlet down, because I have twin eleven-year-olds, and while they have tasted a little bit of Python and a lot of Scratch, I'm thinking I should be maybe the first to write a Golang children's book at this rate, so... We'll se... |
**Ashley Willis:** Please do. |
**Carmen Andoh:** Yes. |
**Jon Calhoun:** \[33:56\] I hope you have a good artist, because I feel like that'd be my biggest limitation; if I was drawing it, it would like a five-year-old drew the whole thing. |
**David Valentine:** Oh, I am a coder art scheme. I'd be full up on the red, green and blue colors. It would look horrific, so... Yeah, I need -- any artists, shout it out and I could probably use some folks to collaborate with on this, no doubt. |
**Ashley Willis:** I'm here, I'm taking note... \[laughs\] |
**Carmen Andoh:** Well, there may or may not be a pre-eminent artist for the Golang community speaking to us at this moment, right now, maybe... I don't know, what you think...? \[laughs\] Yeah, Ashley's gophers are -- how many are there in your automated-- |
**Ashley Willis:** Hundreds. |
**Carmen Andoh:** Billions, in gopherize.me. |
**Ashley Willis:** Oh, in gopherize.me there are billions. I don't know how many combinations there are right now. I think I might have added some things... But billions. |
**Carmen Andoh:** And I really like whoever did your artwork on your Gopercises, Jon. I think it looks like Ashley-esque, but it could be someone else. |
**Ashley Willis:** Yeah, it's not me. |
**David Valentine:** I think that was Marcus Olsen, I wanna say... |
**Ashley Willis:** Yes, it was. Yes! |
**Jon Calhoun:** Because Ashley is who introduced me to him... But I've actually gotten into the habit of -- so Ashley is usually really swamped, so I've gotten into the habit of trying to find different artists for all of the courses, because I like them to have a slightly unique feel. The testing course was Egon Elbr... |
So I'm trying to use different artists for all of them, because I think it's cool to have different people drawing gophers, and I know that Ashley is just overwhelmed with stuff, so I don't wanna keep bugging her... |
**Carmen Andoh:** But it just goes to show that I think when you are making content, whether that is for beginners, or for anyone - we are not a black and white or grey world, right? We are a world of color, and we like visuals, and we like fun, and we learn better when we feel we're at play. |
I remember Richard Feynman talking about how he battled burnout and won a Nobel prize for his Feynam techniques; we're kind of veering into physics, but still learning for beginners... And he always said "Just keep a sense of play about you", and Ashley, that's what I love about the gophers that you bring to the table ... |
Anyway, Jerod Santo, who's also part of the Changelog crew, said that they'd do an ELI5 (explain it like I'm 5) on the sister podcast, JS Party. That would be a great segment for Go Time. So if any of you are down to come back and do a repeat, but for 4-5 year olds, by our inner 5-year-olds, I'd love to do that episode... |
**David Valentine:** That'd be awesome. |
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