58 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
58 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
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---
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title: "Learning Go: Methods and Pointer Receivers"
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date: 2017-12-29T10:46:08-05:00
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draft: true
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tags: ["golang", "learning"]
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---
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# I gotta get Go-ing with this language
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Being in the position I am, I've worked with almost nothing but exclusively interpreted languages, namely Ruby and Python.
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Both of these are great tools to have to solve problems and to solve them quickly. It is easy to pick up an idea and get
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a prototype going in Python or Ruby due to not having to run any compilation, code changes can be tested instantly often by
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just rerunning the interpreter. However, this can be a problem when programs get large. I've been a part of projects
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where there are hundreds of thousands of lines of Ruby and Python code where changes to some backend call can cause a ten second
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difference in the load time of the frontend client.
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People much smarter than me at Google have created and actively develop the programming language Go, which is a compiled language
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that does a lot of cool things out of the box. Knowing how many problems I've had in development that could be potentially solved by Go
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(and missing compilers which catch some nasty bugs before the software starts), I want to learn Go and blog about cool things I find or cool
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things I do with it.
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## Methods in Golang?
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Yes, and this comes from old OOP concepts of message passing to objects. These methods are a neat way to be able to add functionality to your
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types you define in Go. If you are like me coming from OOP languages, methods are a very helpful construct.
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So we've got these people right? And people in this universe are very simple. All they have to identify them is their name, their astrological sign
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and their disposition.
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```go
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type Person struct { name, sign, disposition String }
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```
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Now a person's name may not change, not their sign, but what about their disposition? I'd say my average day is an emotional rollercoaster! Only kidding,
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but we need a way to operate on the person's disposition, let's say based on weather.
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```go
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// Actually a pointer receiver
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func (p *Person) AlterDisposition (weather string) {
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switch weather {
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case 'rainy':
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p.disposition = "sad"
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case 'sunny':
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p.disposition = "happy"
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default:
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p.disposition = "meh"
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}
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}
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```
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That's a funky syntax for this
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