Introduction

I am thrilled to announce the launch of Gopher, a command-line tool written in Go that aims to streamline the management of Go projects. Gopher is designed to provide a comprehensive set of features, empowering developers like me to efficiently build, test, and run Go applications from the terminal. As an avid Rust developer, I drew inspiration from the beloved cargo package manager and sought to bring its convenience and elegance to the Go ecosystem.

Embracing the Love for Cargo

One of the main motivations behind Gopher is my deep appreciation for the Rust language and its accompanying tooling. As I worked extensively with Rust's cargo tool, I realized how it significantly enhanced my productivity and streamlined my workflow.

Mitchel Hashimoto once said it's easier to continue building a side project when you can easily see something good happening from the command line, or at least, from tests.

With cargo, you can run the cargo run command and see an output, then continue building the project until you see the desired output.

Thus, I embarked on the journey to bring a similar experience to the world of Go. With Gopher, I hope to provide Go developers with a tool that simplifies project management, dependency handling, and testing – just like Cargo does for Rust.

Exploring the Microkernel Architecture

In the pursuit of building Gopher, I delved into the realm of systems programming and explored the Microkernel architecture. While it would have been convenient to develop this tool in Rust, given its well-suited tooling ecosystem, my curiosity led me to choose Go for this venture. Gopher embraces the principles of the Microkernel architecture, aiming to maintain a modular and extensible codebase.

This architectural style allows for seamless integration of additional features and extensions as Gopher evolves over time.

I do not use frameworks when building software, so I did not use Cobra or any CLI framework for Go.

Features

For now, Gopher supports only the new command. You can also append two flags to it:

1. --web: to initialize a web application in Go. An entrypoint cmd/<projectName> is created for the web app.

2. --app: to initialize a normal application in Go.

   

If my terminal commands like z and exa look strange to you, read this post.

A Vim Journey and the Terminal

Another driving force behind Gopher's creation was my desire to master Vim as my primary development environment. Prompted by conversations with the talented Timothy Brymes, who emphasized the need for Vim mastery in the Certified Kubernetes Administrator exam, I challenged myself to build Gopher using Vim and the terminal alone. By embracing Vim's efficient text editing capabilities and working solely from the command line, I aimed to deepen my understanding of both Go and Vim while fostering a minimalist development approach.

This is me writing Go code in bare Vim 😪.

Paving the Way for Innovation

Gopher was also born out of a desire to push the boundaries of Go itself. Although Go has made significant advancements with features like Generics and the Go workspace concept, I wanted to contribute something new to the Go toolchain. With Gopher, I aspire to introduce a modern and extensible tool that can adapt to evolving developer needs. By building upon the solid foundation of Go, Gopher aims to facilitate efficient project management, empower collaborative development, and enhance the overall Go development experience.

Gopher is an evolving project, and I am excited to share this initial release with the Go community. As I continue to develop and refine Gopher, I welcome feedback, contributions, and ideas from fellow developers. Together, we can shape Gopher into a powerful Go tool that empowers developers and fosters efficient, enjoyable Go project management.

To learn more about Gopher, explore the repository on GitHub. S tay tuned for updates, additional features, and future releases. Let's embark on this journey together as we embrace the simplicity and power of Go development with Gopher.

Happy coding! 😄