Learning Go Using Visual Studio Code With Dev Containers Extension

January 8, 2024

Golang

Golang, Visual Studio Code, Dev Containers

Prerequisite #

Docker Desktop is installed.
Visual Studio Code is installed.
Visual Studio Code Dev Containers Extension.

Goal #

Print “Hello World!” in terminal using Golang.

Project Setup #

It’s the best practice to isolate all source code into one single location other than your “Home” folder or “Documents” folder. I suggest name it as “workspace”.

Create a folder called learn-go in your “workspace”.
Create a sub-folder called .devcontainer under learn-go folder.
Create an empty JSON file called devcontainer.json in .devcontainer.

Copy and paste following content into this file.

{
    "image": "mcr.microsoft.com/devcontainers/go",
    "name": "ms-go-devcontainer"
}

More Dev Container templates can be found here

The above steps should result a folder structure look like the following.

learn-go                               # directory
├── .devcontainer                      # directory
│   └── devcontainer.json              # file

Run Go In Dev Container #

Open Visual Studio Code and use “Open Folder …" function from the “File” menu to open learn-go folder.
When prompt please choose Reopen in Container.
Verify the Dev Container is connected. The bottom right of the Visual Studio Code should look like this.
Use Ctrl + ` to open the terminal panel.
Run following command to make your current folder as a Go module.
```
go mod init learn-go
```
Create a new file with name hello.go.

Copy and paste the following content into this file.

package main

import (
    "fmt"
)

func main(){
    fmt.Println("Hello World!")
}

Run following command in terminal and the “Hello World!” should be displayed.

👍 DONE!