Golang Development via IDE

I use two golang development environments.

• Text Editor (Sublime)
• Golang IDE (IntelliJ)

Golang IDE Honorable Mentions

Other Golang Dev IDEs include:

• Atom + the go-plus package
• Vim with the vim-go plugin
• Vim with syntastic
• Vim with dotfiles
• Gnu/Emacs
• emacs + go-mode
• LiteIDE
• godev
• emacs
• goconvey

Text Editor

I use Sublime Text + GoSublime for my golang text editor.

Golang IDE

I use Jetbrains tools for a lot of reasons. Here are a few:

• Go application compilation
• Syntax highlighting
• Auto-completion
• Declaration navigation

For a more complete list see: http://lexsheehan.blogspot.com/2014/03/go-language-intellij-idea-plugin.html

IntelliJ

The Golang plugin only works with IntelliJ.

Fortunately, there is a free "Community" version available here: http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/download/

Install the go-language-intellij-idea-plugin from the menu:

IntelliJ IDEA (main menu) > Preferences ... > Plugins

Click "Install JetBrains plugin..." and enter golang as the search term

Then, click the install button for the go-language-intellij-idea-plugin

Download latest build from: go-lang-plugin-org/go-lang-idea-plugin

And

You'll also need to set the Go SDK in the File > Project Structure > Dependencies

Click New... and the path of the desired Go runtime, e.g., /usr/local/Cellar/go/1.4/libexec

Declaration Navigation Broken?

If you see red warnings with messages that say something like, "cannot find declaration to go to", then from the menu: File > Invalidate Caches / Restart...

Tips on Configuring Your Go Development Environment

Install Go

Before you begin working with Go, use Homebrew to install it.

$ brew install go
$ go version
go version go1.2.2 darwin/amd64

Your go version may be different.

~/.bashrc

Configure GOROOT, GOPATH and PATH in ~/.bashrc

You can also put this in other startup files, but I prefer ~/.bashrc

export GOPATH=$HOME/dev/go
export GOROOT=`go env GOROOT`
export PATH=$PATH:$GOROOT/bin

Homebrew Version

If you used Homebrew to install go, then GOROOT must end in "libexec"; Otherwise, you'll get errors like this:

~/dev/go/samples/src/bitbucket.org/l3x/hello $ go install
hello.go:4:3: cannot find package "fmt" in any of:
 /usr/local/Cellar/go/1.2.2/src/pkg/fmt (from $GOROOT)
 /Users/lex/dev/go/samples/src/fmt (from $GOPATH)
package bitbucket.org/l3x/hello
 imports runtime: cannot find package "runtime" in any of:
 /usr/local/Cellar/go/1.2.2/src/pkg/runtime (from $GOROOT)
 /Users/lex/dev/go/samples/src/runtime (from $GOPATH)

/etc/launchd.conf

Configure GOROOT and GOPATH in /etc/launchd.conf

Create the file if it does not already exist.

setenv GOROOT $GOROOT
setenv GOPATH $GOPATH

Enable launchctl settings without rebooting:

$ launchctl setenv GOROOT $GOROOT
$ launchctl setenv GOPATH $GOPATH

Enable launchctl settings if you start IntelliJ from spotlight.

If you start IntelliJ from the command line, this won't be necessary.

References

http://lexsheehan.blogspot.com/2014/09/go-lang-idea-plugin-incorrect-go-sdk.html
http://lexsheehan.blogspot.com/2014/03/go-language-intellij-idea-plugin.html
http://github.com/go-lang-plugin-org/go-lang-idea-plugin
http://www.sublimetext.com/2
https://github.com/DisposaBoy/GoSublime
http://www.esimov.com/2014/03/new-adeventure-the-go-language
https://github.com/smartystreets/goconvey/wiki/Opening-files-in-your-editor-from-the-Web-UI

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.