Editor Setup

Choose an Editor

You can write Go in any text editor, but a programming editor makes learning easier. It highlights syntax, formats code, shows errors, jumps to definitions, and opens a terminal beside your files.

This course works well with Visual Studio Code because it is free, cross-platform, and has an excellent Go extension. JetBrains GoLand is also a strong paid alternative with many Go features built in.

VS Code and the Go Extension

Install VS Code from https://code.visualstudio.com/. Then open the Extensions view, search for Go, and install the official extension published by the Go team at Google.

The extension uses gopls, the Go language server. A language server understands your code and powers completion, hover help, rename, diagnostics, and jump-to-definition.

mkdir hello-editor
cd hello-editor
go mod init example.com/hello-editor
code .

Format on Save

Format-on-save means your editor runs the Go formatter whenever you save a file. This removes a whole category of beginner frustration: spacing and indentation become automatic.

{
  "editor.formatOnSave": true,
  "[go]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "golang.go",
    "editor.formatOnSave": true,
    "editor.codeActionsOnSave": {
      "source.organizeImports": "explicit"
    }
  },
  "go.useLanguageServer": true,
  "gopls": {
    "ui.semanticTokens": true,
    "analyses": {
      "unusedparams": true,
      "shadow": true
    },
    "staticcheck": true
  }
}

Diagnostics and Terminal

Diagnostics are warnings and errors shown in the editor, often with red or yellow underlines. They can catch missing imports, unused variables, and syntax mistakes before you run the program.

Use the integrated terminal for course commands: View → Terminal in VS Code. Running go run ., go test ./..., and go fmt ./... from inside the editor keeps your code and feedback together.